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Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487

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Accounting, paper shadows and the stigmatised poor

Stephen P. Walker *

Cardiff Business School, Aberconway Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, United Kingdom

Abstract

The social implications of accounting are explored through an historical study of spoiled identities in state welfare
systems. The processing, recording, classification and communication inherent in the accounting practices deployed in
such systems have the potential to (re)construct identities, inform perceptions of self and impact on the social relation-
ships of the welfare claimant. The paper examines these potentialities through an investigation of the accounting regime
attending the system of poor relief in Victorian England and Wales. Informed primarily by the work of Goffman it is
suggested that accounting processes comprised degradation ceremonies which compounded the stigmatisation of the
recipient of relief, accounting classifications served to inscribe existing and create additional spoiled identities of the
pauper, and individualized forms of accounting disclosure compromised the management of stigma by the poor.
Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

I lifted the big knocker, and knocked; the ‘Very well, Sir.’
door was promptly opened, and I entered. ‘What’s your name?’
Just within, a comfortable-looking clerk sat ‘Joshua Mason, Sir.’
at a comfortable desk, ledger before him . . . ‘What are you?’
‘What do you want?’ asked the man who ‘An engraver.’
opened the door. ‘Where did you sleep last night?’
‘I want a lodging.’ ‘Hammersmith,’ I answered-as I hope to be
‘Go and stand before the desk,’ said the por- forgiven!
ter; and I obeyed. ‘How many times have you been here?’
‘You are late,’ said the clerk. ‘Never before, Sir.’
‘Am I, sir?’ ‘Where do you mean to go when you are
‘Yes. If you come in you’ll have a bath, and turned out in the morning?’
you’ll have to sleep in the shed.’ ‘Back to Hammersmith, Sir.’
These humble answers being entered in a
book, the clerk called to the porter, saying,
*
Tel.: +44 29 2087 6546. ‘Take him through.’
E-mail address: WalkerS2@cardiff.ac.uk (A Night in a Workhouse, Greenwood, 1866).

0361-3682/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.aos.2007.02.006
454 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
Introduction
In recent decades the pervasive and intrinsically
social character of calculative practice has become
widely recognised by the accounting academy. In
1963, Mautz contended that accounting ‘‘is con-
cerned with transactions and other economic
events which have social consequences and influ-
ence social relationships; it produces knowledge
that is useful and meaningful to human beings
engaged in activities having social implications’’.
Burchell, Clubb, Hopwood, Hughes, and Nahap-
iet (1980) iterated that accounting is ‘‘a prevalent
feature of the societies in which we live’’. Hop-
wood urged exploration of ‘‘the social underpin-
nings and consequences of all accountings’’
(1985). Miller has consistently argued that in mul-
tiple sites accounting ‘‘is intrinsic to, and constitu-
tive of social relations, rather than derivative or
secondary’’ (1994, p. 1; 2001). Similarly, Coval-
eski, Dirsmith, and Samuel (1996) concluded that
managerial accounting practices comprise ‘‘one
strand in the complex weave that makes up the
social fabric’’.
The conceptualisation of accounting as a social
practice encourages its investigation beyond enti-
ties located in the economic base (Hopwood,
1987). It is recognised that accounting is ‘‘a perva-
sive and highly generalised technology that can
contribute to the functioning of a very wide range
of organisations and socio-economic processes’’
(Hopwood, 1994; Miller, 1990). Although the
‘‘irredeemably social’’ functioning of accounting
as a technology of government is acknowledged
within accounting (Miller, 2001; Miller & Rose,
1990; Rose & Miller, 1992), it has been a source
of frustration that sociologists have been largely
unresponsive to accountants’ proclamations.
While lamenting the neglected sociological explo-
ration of accounting, Vollmer (2003) considers
that its conception as a ubiquitous practice
revealed ‘‘a vast space for sociological research’’
into which its practitioners should venture.
Another source of frustration resides within the
accounting academy itself. While several commen-
tators during the 1980s and 1990s argued that his-
torical research may offer important contributions
to understandings of accounting as social practice,
the rate of theoretical and empirical advance has
been limited. Burchell et al. (1980) called for inves-
tigations to address questions about the social
issues and agents which featured in accounting
development and how accounting has come to fea-
ture in social life. Hopwood (1985) articulated the
desirability of a greater historical appreciation of
the intertwining of accounting in the social and
of the roles accounting ‘‘played in both the con-
struction and realisation of the domains of the
social and the political’’. Miller and Napier
(1993) extolled the utility of exploring diverse his-
torical contexts in which calculative techniques are
deployed. Miller (1998) recognised the invigorative
effects of examining accounting at its margins at
various historical junctures. Yet, historical
research has continued to be substantially domi-
nated by studies of the emergence, rationales and
operation of accounting in organisations which
inhabit the economic sphere. During the 1980s
and 1990s economic rationalist, labour process
and Foucauldian interpretations of the role of
cost and management accounting systems under
industrial capitalism sparked a lively discourse of
advancing momentum. While its participants were
not oblivious to the social implications of the tech-
niques they discovered, their site was the business
enterprise. Accounting historians have tended to
prioritise the study of accounting in the firm to
the exclusion of the social institutions and prac-
tices which activate social control, maintain social
order and perform functions of socialisation and
social protection.
The narrow orientation of historical research in
accounting has been observed by a number of
commentators. Jones (1977) discerned that
Anglo-US accounting history neglected non-mar-
ket settings. At the First Accounting History Inter-
national Conference, Melbourne, 1999 the author
called for ‘Glimpses of Accounting in Social Insti-
tutions’ as well as of accounting in the corporation
and factory. Employing Marx’s (1976) metaphor it
was suggested that in addition to pursuing their
conventional focus on accountings in the economic
base, historians should recognise the insights to be
gained from examining the functioning of account-
ing in the superstructure of socio-cultural institu-
tions which emerge from and interact with it.
 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
Parker (1999) has suggested the greater investiga-
tion of the social contexts of accounting in the past
and greater engagement with social historians – a
theme reiterated by Zan (2004). At the 26th Euro-
pean Accounting Association Congress in 2003 a
symposium was held to address the questions:
‘Research fields of accounting history. Only busi-
ness accounting? Why?’.
The operation of accounting in the social
appears therefore, to require further exploration
in historical settings. The current paper seeks to
contribute to the socio-historical examination of
accounting by investigating how calculative tech-
niques of processing, recording, classifying and
communicating information on individuals were
activated in the construction of identity, informed
perceptions of self and impacted on social relation-
ships. Specifically, the study reveals how the enor-
mous accounting system established under the
Poor Law Amendment Act (1834) was a facilita-
tive device in the stigmatisation of the poor in Eng-
land and Wales.
In examining the vast accounting system
attending the administration of relief we have an
illustration of the historically contingent nature
of the margins of accounting (Miller, 1998), of
the malleability of its boundaries in instances
where the state identifies accounting’s utility in
problem solving. In this instance the problem
was the need to reduce the cost of supporting the
poor. As in other episodes the design of the pre-
scribed accounting techniques was informed by
the achievement of the state’s objectives and
reflected dominant ideologies (Miller & Napier,
1993). The case resonates with Most’s (1977, p.
2) observation that what constitutes accounting
is mutative – varying spatially and temporally
according to the problems it is applied to and the
individuals and disciplines mobilised to formulate
solutions (also Miller, 1994; Vollmer, 2003).
The paper is structured thus. The next section
reviews literature on the implications of informa-
tion processing, classification and communication
– practices commonly perceived as intrinsic to
accounting (Belkaoui, 1993, pp. 22–23) – for the
social identity of the inmate. The concept of stig-
matised identity is then introduced and attended
by insights to the manner in which accounting
455
may be implicated in the construction and mainte-
nance of spoiled identities in welfare and disciplin-
ary institutions. The accounting system introduced
under the Victorian poor law is subsequently
related as a contextual precursor to the discussion
of empirical evidence. That evidence is drawn from
various sources. British parliamentary papers con-
tained a succession of orders, circulars and the
reports of royal commissions and committees
which, with published manuals, contained compre-
hensive details on the changing accounting system
prescribed under the new Poor Law. The minute
books and correspondence of the Poor Law Com-
missioners offered insights to official motives.
Numerous histories of the administration of the
poor law helped contextualise the study. The prac-
tical operation of the uniform system of poor law
accounting was explored through the surviving
records for two counties. Contemporary novels
and biographies provided some insights to the role
of accounting in the experience of pauperism. It
remains a source of frustration to historians of
poverty that the traces left by officialdom and mid-
dle class observers are usually more profuse than
experiences documented by the poor themselves,
and this places limits on the current study.1 That
said, the evidence which is available did provide
insights to how accounting processes, record keep-
ing, classification, communication and disclosure
contributed to the stigmatization of the pauper.
Information processing, classification,
communication and identity
Processing, recording and identity
For Weber the written document or file was a
feature of the rise of the modern bureaucracy
(1968, p. 957). He observed the use of such bureau-
cratic procedures for structuring authority and
exercising power and noted the increasing calcula-
bility of record-keeping practice and its potentially
dehumanising effects (pp. 956–1007). However,
1
Locating potentially relevant autobiographies of the poor
was much assisted by Burnett (1984) and Burnett, Vincent, and
Mayall (1984, 1987, 1989).
456 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
Weber has been criticised for offering limited
explorations of ‘‘the informational consequences
of systematic book-keeping, the building up of
records, the documentation of cases, the codifica-
tion of rules and procedures’’ (Webster, 1995, p.
54).2 In the second half of the 20th century there
was increasing recognition of the impacts of such
procedures on identity construction and the social
control of the ‘clients’ of educational, correctional,
medical and welfare institutions. Recognising that
the processes of recording personal data pervaded
everyday experience and life courses (Wheeler,
1969, pp. 3, 10–11, 22), the Russell Sage Founda-
tion sponsored a comprehensive study of the sig-
nificance of the personal record, file and dossier
in 1960s America. These documents comprised
‘‘a written account or listing of the attributes,
qualities, and performances of human beings, the
evidence stored by organizations for a variety of
purposes relating to their activities’’ (p. 4). It was
shown that records were created as a basis for
action taking, for making, justifying and recording
decisions and that their authority was enhanced by
characteristics of physicality, permanence, trans-
ferability and facelessness (pp. 5, 12).
The Russell Sage Foundation studies empha-
sised that written accounts had social functions
and implications. These included social control
and the conferment and maintenance of individual
identity. Records were ‘‘identity-giving’’ in that
they contained ascribed labels and characterisa-
tions of an individual which were translated into
behavioural expectations by the interpreter of the
record. Records were ‘‘identity-maintaining’’ in
relation to their ‘‘memory-tracing function’’ – doc-
uments could be consulted long after the subject
departed from the organisation. Although changes
are inscribed in personal records, perceptions of
the individual can become solidified by the content
of earlier entries: ‘‘Our capacity to turn back to the
record-keeping system many years after an indi-
vidual has left the setting in question means that
2
The advance of such techniques is particularly evident in the
modern public hospital where the construction and mainte-
nance of patient files has become a principal product of clinical
work (Olson, 1995).
whatever identity he has established there will
not be easily overridden by later events’’ (Wheeler,
1969, p. 15). The Russell Sage Foundation studies
also pointed to the importance of the personal file
to identity construction and destruction. For
example, ‘misidentification’ or the loss of a per-
sonal file may result in a diminishment of ‘official
identity’, an erosion of public self, or impaired
social interaction (Clark, 1969, p. 69; Rule, Caplo-
vitz, & Barker, 1969, p. 163).
Subsequent commentators have reiterated the
importance of the file record as a non-corporeal
embodiment which locates the person in time
and space. Harré distinguishes the ‘‘real-self’’ from
the ‘‘file-self’’ (Harré, 1983, pp. 69–74). The con-
tents of (potentially multiple) files and the vocabu-
laries employed in them, ‘‘file-speak’’, construct
the person and condition interaction with the real
self: ‘‘Since most file encounters involve some sort
of assessment of a person relative to a moral order,
the fate of one’s file can play an enormously
important part in one’s life’’ (p. 70). Cahill
(1998) observed that information is the raw mate-
rial of ‘‘person production’’. It is on the basis of
facts about a person that the individual is defined
and located in relation to others. Hence, ‘‘methods
of collecting, constructing, compiling, and storing
socially credible information about individuals
constitute a technology of person production’’.
These technologies ‘‘situate the inmate in a net-
work of writing and mass of documents that cap-
ture and fix him or her’’.
Commentators have also recognised that the
form, content and utilisation of personal records
shift according to organizational priorities and
the ‘‘values, tastes, ideologies, and biases of those
who contribute to and draw from the record sys-
tem’’ (Wheeler, 1969, pp. 13–14). Hence, the ‘‘file
self’’ is spatio-temporally situated and is con-
structed according to the reasons for which it is
kept. Specification of the information collected
and recorded, as well as access to the record also
reflect asymmetries of power between the file mas-
ter and the file subject (Harré, 1983, p. 70). ‘‘Those
who control these means of mining, manufactur-
ing, storing, and retrieving ‘facts’ about individu-
als exert inordinate influence over interactional
processes of person production . . . They construct
 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
the ‘‘objective facts’’ of individuals’ lives that fill
their files and limit their persons whenever they
encounter someone who has access to those files’’
(Cahill, 1998).
Texts, such as personal files, which identify and
individuate, also comprise a key mechanism of
institutional governance and administrative con-
trol (Giddens, 1987, pp. 41–49; Smith, 1993,
2001; Caplan & Torpey, 2001). Texts condition,
reflect and facilitate ‘relations of ruling’ and sus-
tain structures of social organization. The design,
content and distribution of the record are framed
by institutional requirements for governing and,
despite appearing neutral may ‘‘conceal class, gen-
der, and racial subtexts’’ (Smith, 1990, p. 65). The
raw material for the construction of a ‘case’ is
invariably an account offered by the subject. The
transformation from personal account to objecti-
fied facticity is a discursive process involving an
agent whose production of the record is potentially
coloured by institutional and professional priori-
ties. The mediating agent ensures that certain sub-
jectivities and lived contexts are detached from the
account given (Smith, 1990, p. 64). This processing
of texts inscribes individual identities in accord
with organisational schemata and options for deal-
ing with the ‘case’. The textual practice of creating
and maintaining the ‘case’ ensures that ‘‘Individu-
als are known as ‘cases’ under the interpretative
aegis of their records’’ (Smith, 1993, p. 220;
1990, pp. 89–93). As additional information is
required for insertion in the case file, the individ-
ual’s ‘current status’ and identity shifts. In the pro-
cess of compiling the case file its subject does not
define the terms of information gathering. The
institutionalized patient ‘‘is a resource but not an
agent in the making of accounts of her behaviour’’
(Smith, 1990, p. 91).
The significance of information processing for
identity construction in institutional environments
such as the asylum and the prison was also
addressed by Foucault (1989, pp. 35–60, 229–
264; 1991, pp. 293–308). For Foucault the essence
of disciplinary power is its capacity to identify,
examine and analyse the individual (1991, p.
170). Techniques of ‘‘hierarchical observation’’,
of surveillance and recording the conduct of
inmates, pupils or workers, enables visibility, the
457
exercise of power over the individual, the suppres-
sion of deviance and the production of normalised
behaviour (1991, pp. 170–177). The examination,
which applies hierarchical observation and nor-
malization, comprises a potent form of disciplin-
ary power (1991, pp. 184–185) that generates
documentation on the individual such as registers
and files. Foucault observed the implications for
identity: ‘‘The examination that places individuals
in a field of surveillance also situates them in a net-
work of writing; it engages them in a whole mass
of documents that capture and fix them’’ (1991,
p. 189). He also noted that the examination and
documentary techniques constructed individuals
as ‘cases’ in which ‘‘describable individuality’’
becomes ‘‘a means of control and a method of
domination’’ (1991, pp. 191–192). As a singular
‘case’ the characteristics, defining features and sta-
tus of the individual are inscribed by reference to
the functions and priorities of the institution main-
taining the record. Such ‘‘procedures of individual-
isation’’ tended towards the wider creation, from
the 18th century, of ‘‘calculable man’’ as objects
of knowledge and the emergence of ‘disciplinary
society’ (pp. 192–194, 215–216, 224–228).
Some observers have discerned similarities
between Foucault’s focus on ‘hierarchical observa-
tion’, the examination and the documentary ‘case’
in disciplinary institutions, and the systematised
surveillance of inmates in Goffman’s ‘total institu-
tion’ (Cahill, 1998). While Foucault’s work has
informed a number of seminal contributions to
the accounting literature,3 Goffman, ‘‘the quintes-
sential sociologist of every day social life’’ (Brana-
man, 1997), has been sadly neglected despite his
insights to the experiences of those subjected to
disciplinary technologies, among which are calcu-
lation. Goffman’s symbolic interactionist
approach focuses on the inmate and the construc-
tion of self in total institutions. A total institution
is ‘‘a place of residence and work where a large
number of like-situated individuals, cut off from
the wider society for an appreciable period of time,
together lead an enclosed, formally administered
round of life’’ (1968, p. 11). Total institutions
3
Even though, as Hoskin has observed, ‘‘Foucault wrote
virtually nothing on management or accounting’’ (1998, p. 94).
458 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
include establishments for the care of the incapable
and sick, containing and/or correcting those who
pose a threat to society, the performance of com-
mon work tasks and retreating from the world.
Examples include homes for the blind and aged,
mental hospitals, prisons, concentration camps,
army barracks, and convents (p. 16).
The fact that in total institutions the work, play
and sleep of inmates occurs in a single establishment
and the activities of a large number of inmates have
to be planned, organised and rule-driven ensures
that ‘‘the bureaucratic organization of whole blocks
of people . . . is the key fact of total institutions’’ (p.
18). The management of inmates by small numbers
of supervisors encourages an emphasis on surveil-
lance techniques and a tendency for staff to perceive
the collectivity of inmates in terms of negative ste-
reotypes (p. 18). Goffman also explores the impact
of residence in a total institution on the self. He
shows how on entering the institution the inmate
‘‘begins a series of abasements, degradations,
humiliations, and profanations of self which
detaches him from his former identity, his ‘home
self’ (p. 26). His self ‘‘is systematically, if often unin-
tentionally, mortified’’ by practices such as undress-
ing, bathing, wearing institutional clothing and
bureaucratic procedures (p. 24). The collection
and recording of personal data comprises a compo-
nent of the ‘‘stripping and levelling processes’’ of
the institution (1968, pp. 25–26, 111). They repre-
sent incursions to ‘‘territories of the self’’ (Goffman,
1971, pp. 28–41), ‘‘a violation of one’s informa-
tional preserve regarding self. During admission,
facts about the inmate’s social statuses and past
behaviour – especially discreditable facts – are col-
lected and recorded in a dossier available to staff’’
(1968, p. 32).4 Until his departure from the institu-
tion the inmate will be asked to disclose other facts,
some of which he would prefer to conceal. Observa-
tions on treatments, behaviour, punishments, good
conduct and progress will be entered in the file. The
case record is selectively constructed, tending to
4 5
Similarly, Irwin (1970) traced the shifting identity of the
criminal through processes from arrest to release: ‘‘In the
Kafkaesque world of the booking room, the jail cell, the inter-
rogation room, and the visiting room, the boundaries of the self
collapse’’ (p. 39).
inscribe symptoms confirmatory of the reasons for
the patient’s presence in the institution and identify-
ing negative traits and discrediting labels (1968, pp.
143–149).
Hence, through bureaucratic systems the resi-
dent of the total institution is traced. Goffman rec-
ognises the accounting resemblances in the
creation of a ‘‘paper shadow’’:
And just as an article being processed
through an industrial plant must be followed
by a paper shadow showing what has been
done by whom, what is to be done, and
who last had responsibility for it, so a human
object, moving, say, through a mental-hospi-
tal system, must be followed by a chain of
informative receipts detailing what has been
done to and by the patient and who had most
recent responsibility for him. Even the pres-
ence or absence of a particular patient at a
given meal or for a given night may have to
be recorded, so that cost accounting can be
maintained and appropriate adjustments
rendered in billing. In the inmate’s career
from admission suite to burial plot, many
different kinds of staff will add their official
note to his case file as he temporarily passes
under their jurisdiction, and long after he has
died physically his marked remains will sur-
vive as an actionable entity in the hospital’s
bureaucratic system (1968, pp. 73–74; Erik-
son & Gilbertson, 1969).5
The classificatory schema employed in the
record-keeping systems of disciplinary and total
institutions also have consequences for the identity
of the inmate.
Classification and identity
Classification, the ‘‘spatial, temporal, or spatio-
temporal segmentation of the world’’ (Bowker &
Star, 1999, p. 10), has featured as a major, if often
In Asylums Goffman (1968) briefly alludes to intriguing
forms of accounting in total institutions. These include
accountings accompanying the dispensing of allowances and
credit to inmates (pp. 234–235) and the shadow economy
operated by the inmates (p. 239).
 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
shrouded, instrument in the control of deviance in
industrial society (Cohen, 1985, pp. 13; 191–196).
Foucault recognised that the operation and conse-
quences of classification in the construction of
order and governance (1970, pp. 125–165). For
Foucault ‘‘normalizing judgement’’, which estab-
lishes the limits of acceptable behaviour, requires
the categorisation of good and bad attributes
and the rewards and punishment attending the
same. Hierarchical classifications locate and differ-
entiate individuals, they identify the abnormal, the
boundaries of inclusion and exclusion and encour-
age conformity to the ‘‘power of the norm’’ (1991,
pp. 177–184). Disciplinary writing on the individ-
ual enables processes of classification. The exami-
nation provides a medium for gaining knowledge
about the individual and this can be used to clas-
sify him. Accumulated knowledge from individua-
lised records also permits the determination of
averages and norms against which personal con-
duct can be measured. Hence, surveillance, exami-
nation and classification feature as instruments of
discipline.
Smith explains how the standardization, cate-
gorisation and uniformity of prescribed documents
activate organisational policy and reflect the prior-
ities of the state. Accounting and managerial infor-
mation systems comprise such texts (1993, pp.
213–214). The manner in which inscription pro-
cesses operate, as in the conversion of an account
relayed by a client into a record of descriptions,
categories, abstractions and quantities (the facts
required by the organisation), ‘‘plays an important
role in the constitution of objectified forms of
social consciousness characteristic of the ruling
apparatus’’ (1993, pp. 216–217). Official classifica-
tions create objectified and enforced identities
which may have little foundation in the lived expe-
rience of those classified (1990, pp. 85–87, 93–100).
Harré (1983) reveals that psychiatric files condense
the person with reference to the vocabulary of the
discipline and fail to capture the wider dimensions
of the real self. This selectivity tends to classify and
characterise people and ascribe them with traits
framed by the purpose for which the record is
being maintained. People’s identities can be ‘dis-
tilled’ according to salient information required
to manage and treat them.
459
Social categories, classifications and administra-
tive allocations are forms of collective identification
which may impact on group and individual identity
(Jenkins, 1996, pp. 80–89, 154–170). Classifications
‘‘craft people’s identities, aspirations, and dignity’’,
distort individual biographies, intentionally confer
esteem or disesteem and thereby have consequences
for social status and interaction (Bowker & Star,
1999, p. 4). The bases on which classifications are
constructed therefore assumes significance. Studies
reveal that classifications tend to reflect asymme-
tries of power and embody contemporary moral,
social and political ideologies. By reference to shift-
ing systems of racial classification under apartheid
in South Africa, Bowker and Star illustrate how
‘‘the lives of individuals are broken, twisted, and
torqued by their encounters with classification sys-
tems’’ (pp. 26, 195–225). They also identify the
importance of bureaucracies and information gath-
ering technologies in the functioning of such
regimes. In relation to apartheid, for example, ‘‘a
normalized, systemic bookkeeping system was
embedded in a larger program of human destruc-
tion’’ (p. 196).
The social consequences of classificatory
schemes are not confined to oppressive regimes.
Bureaucratic and administrative allocations are
all-pervasive. They are operative in, for example,
social security systems. The ‘‘classificatory logics
of state welfare systems’’ involves the construction
of an array of predefined and differentiating identi-
ties which locate the citizen according to nature of
claim, personal needs and possible solutions (Mohr,
1998). Here and elsewhere classifications involve ‘‘a
process of labelling, imbued with organisational
and administrative authority, in which positive
and negative stereotypes of particular social catego-
ries are applied to individuals, systematically influ-
encing the distribution to them of scarce resources
and penalties’’ (Jenkins, 1996, p. 163).
Studies of penal institutions reveal how the
identities of criminal inmates are largely con-
structed by official images of the miscreant and
his classification within administrative pro-
grammes (Irwin, 1970). An ‘‘officially constructed
view’’ of the felon is derived, informed by catego-
ries which reflect administrative explanations for
criminality and official policies towards correction.
460 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
Official classifications tend toward the ‘‘polariza-
tion of identities’’ by discouraging ambivalent
labelling. Although they refer to the collective,
classifications serve to reconstruct the identity of
the inmate and the perceptions of those with
whom he socially interacts. Classifications can
become internalised, deviant identity embedded
and may encourage behaviour consistent with the
classification ascribed (pp. 36–50). The felon usu-
ally becomes aware of his classification through
the process of information gathering and
exchanges with officials, and experience of the
treatments prescribed for the classification
accorded (Irwin, 1970, pp. 45–46). Studies suggest
that classificatory labels ascribed to prisoners are
determinants of behaviour rather than reflections
of the characteristics of inmates (Bench & Allen,
2003).
Communication and identity
Another important aspect of the gathering and
recording of information in the construction of
identity is the extent to which discrediting or
esteem-generating labels are communicated and
made visible, both within and beyond the institu-
tion. In this respect the subject of the case file is
powerless. He has limited access to the informa-
tion contained in the file and no control over its
content or distribution. However, if and when
the officially constructed identities which emerge
from institutional processing and classification
become known, such disclosure can impact on
social perceptions and relationships of the subject.
Foucault emphasised the manner in which the
functioning of disciplinary institutions require that
manifold dimensions of individual conduct and
behaviour are recorded, reported and distributed
through the organisational hierarchy (1991, pp.
196–197, 231, 249–250). He also noted how the
penal institution punishes the inmate not only by
sentencing but by ‘brandings’ inscribed in the
record which endure beyond the period sentenced
(1979, p. 272). The disclosure of information (posi-
tive or negative) contained in the inmate’s record
may have consequences for his identity and social
interaction on discharge, particularly when this
information is communicated to other agencies
(Goffman, 1968, pp. 71, 75). The discrediting
effects of disclosure can also persist through limit-
ing access to, for example, employment opportuni-
ties (Irwin, 1970, pp. 134–138; Little, 1969).
Accounting and stigmatised identities
The emphasis of the current study is on the
manner in which accounting, as a technique of
information processing, classification and commu-
nication, may contribute to the creation and main-
tenance of spoiled identity. This focus requires
engagement with research on stigma, a subject
which seldom features in the accounting
literature.6
Although criticised as a vague concept since the
publication of Goffman’s Stigma (1963), there has
been an outpouring of multidisciplinary research
into the character and consequences of various
stigmata such as mental illness, sexual orientation
and unemployment (Link & Phelan, 2001).
According to Goffman stigma is ‘‘an undesired dif-
ferentness’’ (1990, p. 14) – an inferior attribute
which distinguishes an individual from the ‘nor-
mal’ and encourages negative perceptions such as
shame or disgrace (Williams, 2000). Dovidio,
Major, and Crocker (2000, p. 3) assert that stigma
‘‘is a social construction that involves at least two
fundamental components: (1) the recognition of
difference based on some distinguishing character-
istic, or ‘‘mark’’; and (2) a consequent devaluation
of the person’’. Other commentators contrast
‘‘existential stigmas’’ – which derive from attri-
butes over which the individual has no control
(such as illness, age, sex and race) and ‘‘achieved
stigmas’’ which result from conduct (such as
addiction, crime, migration) (Falk, 2001, pp. 11–
13). Studies also reveal that stigmas are ubiquitous
and matter – ‘‘stigmatisation is personally, inter-
6
For an example of a study on the impact of a stigma
(bankruptcy) taken from the business literature see Sutton and
Callahan (1987). In accounting Neu and Wright (1992) exam-
ined the management of stigma by the Canadian audit
profession when its competence was questioned in the wake
of a high profile bank failure.
 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
personally, and socially costly’’, they may entail
multiple disadvantages and impacts on life chances
(Dovidio et al., 2000, p. 1). While some stigmatis-
ing reactions are benign others have devastating
consequences (Jones et al., 1984, pp. 1–11). Stig-
mas may be the foundation of low social status,
prejudice, discrimination, ostracism, victimization
and exclusion. The stigmatised individual may suf-
fer psychological distress, economic hardship,
embarrassment, humiliation, guilt, social inferior-
ity and a devaluation of self esteem.
Goffman identifies three types of stigmatising
attributes: ‘‘abominations of the body-the various
physical deformities’’, ‘‘blemishes of individual
character’’ and ‘‘the tribal stigma of race, nation,
and religion’’ (p. 14). Spicker (1984, pp. 64–65),
whose focus on late-modern systems of welfare is
particularly relevant to the current study, offers a
more detailed categorisation of overlapping stig-
matising attributes which cuts across Goffman’s
classification. These comprise Physical stigmas
where a physical feature (such as illness, disability,
race or old age) is the source of discredit; mental
stigmas where spoiled identity emanates from
behaviour associated with mental illness or addic-
tion; stigmas of poverty where disesteem stems
from insufficient economic resources and power-
lessness (exemplified by unemployment, homeless-
ness etc); the stigma of dependency which emerges
from the disapprobation attending failure, lack
of reciprocity and reliance on others; and finally,
moral stigmas where deviance results from con-
scious acts (such as criminality, illegitimacy,
homosexuality or divorce) which breach accepted
standards of conduct (Spicker, 1984, pp. 68–118).
This taxonomy does not preclude dual or multiple
stigmas. For example, old age may be a physical
stigma which is attended by lack of resources
and the stigmas of poverty and dependence (Wax-
man, 1977, pp. 70–71). It is also important to note
that stigmas are not spatio-temporally fixed:
‘‘Because stigma is largely a social construction,
a characteristic may be stigmatising at one histor-
ical moment but not at another, or in one given sit-
uation but not in another within the same period’’
(Dovilio et al., 2000, p. 3; Page, 1984, pp. 4–5).
Hence Crocker, Major, and Steele (1998) define
stigma is an ‘‘attribute or characteristic that con-
461
veys a social identity that is devalued in a particu-
lar context’’ (emphasis added).7
By returning to the role of information process-
ing, classification and communication in the con-
struction of identity, the manner in which
accounting may be facilitative of stigmatisation
becomes evident.
Processing, recording and spoiled identity
As an organisational technique of identifica-
tion, examination and recording information
accounting can contribute to the application,
imputation and internalisation of spoiled identi-
ties. Labelling theorists have illustrated how
administrative and bureaucratic practices for the
processing and treatment of deviance can produce
new or reinforce existing deviant labels (Schur,
1971, pp. 3–4). Such processes may involve the
identification and labelling of difference or sepa-
rateness with consequences for the labelled.8 A
personal criminal record is an ‘‘organized stigma’’
which is ‘‘difficult to escape or manage’’, an endur-
ing credential which may frustrate attempts at eco-
nomic and social participation (Lemert, 1969, p.
372; Lister, Baker, & Milhous, 1976). Where it
involves the process of applying and inscribing
labels to individuals, accounting can contribute
to the ‘sticking’ of ascribed identities, particularly
when the labels are formal or officially determined.
Through its recording function accounting may
also validate stigmatised identities and contribute
to the labelled becoming what they are labelled.
Accounting procedures may also feature
among ‘rituals of degradation’ or ‘degradation
7
Compare, for example, perceptions of divorce, illegitimacy,
age and ‘fatness’ in Victorian Britain with the present day.
Similarly, in some social settings attributes such as drunkenness
may generate respect rather than contempt in modern laddish
culture.
8
Schur (1971, p. 3) refers to the example of the drug addict
who, having been treated in an institution, assumes the
additional label of ‘junkie’. An example of greater resonance
with the subject and period studied in this paper can be found in
Oliver Twist (Dickens, 1874, p. 38). Noah Claypole, a charity-
boy (who was branded by boys in the neighbourhood as
‘charity’), taunted Oliver with the degraded appellation
‘Work’us’, he having been born an orphan in the workhouse.
462 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
ceremonies’ at crisis moments in the life course.
These threaten identity and encourage re-evalua-
tions and redefinitions of self (Schur, 1971, pp.
70–71). This is particularly the case in relation to
data collection processes in some welfare systems
where booking, giving and recording accounts,
and submitting and scrutinising evidence pervade
application procedures (Spicker, 1984, p. 46; Wil-
liams, 2000; Zimmerman, 1969). Indeed the stigma
associated with ‘‘bureaucratic encounters’’ and
submission to processes of information collection
and retention, disclosing personal details, the crea-
tion of a personal file, means-testing, registration
(of the disabled and blind, for example) and fears
about breaches of confidentiality, are recognised
as potential disincentives to deserving claimants
(Hasenfeld, Rafferty, & Zald, 1987; Spicker,
1984, pp. 31–36, 40, 48). Spicker quotes a source
in 1978 who stated ‘‘However much the caring ser-
vices deny it, there is a stigma – or a special look in
the visitor’s eye – when your name is on file’’ (p.
40). Where, as in the case elucidated later,
accounting is part of the individuating process of
information gathering it may also contribute to
such stigmatisation.
Classification and spoiled identity
The foregoing discussion of stigma has focused
on the individual. But stigma is ‘‘a derogatory
attribute imputed to the social image of an individ-
ual or a group’’ (Shoham, 1970, p. 2). Social psy-
chologists explore how individuals construct
categories on the basis of observed stigmas and
relate these to stereotypes (Link & Phelan, 2001;
Jones et al., 1984, pp. 6–7). Stigmatised individuals
are often accorded membership of a stigmatised
group through classification (Goffman, 1990, pp.
35–36). Labelling theorists contend that ‘second-
ary’ deviance emerges from societal reactions to
original sources of deviance. Some ascribed classi-
fications such as ‘obese’ may attract discrediting
tagged attributes such as ‘idle’ and ‘lazy’ (Link &
Phelan, 2001). Classifications and ‘typifications’
may emerge from attempts to identify and treat
individual ‘cases’. They may also result from
increasing state bureaucratisation and monitoring
of institutional performance, such as the obliga-
tion to gather and report abstract statistics (Schur,
1971, pp. 83, 96–99).
Moreover, as Link and Phelan (2001) remind us
‘‘Stigma is entirely dependent on social, economic,
and political power – it takes power to stigmatize’’.
Hence, the formulation of stigmatising classifica-
tory schema by the powerful, particularly via the
state, may become institutionalised as ‘official’,
thereby conferring added sustainability and social
potency. Studies reveal that state welfare classifica-
tions convey negative social representations which
threaten identity and may be stigmatising to claim-
ants (Page, 1984, pp. 152–153; Breakwell, 1986,
pp. 54–63). When an individual, stigmatised by a
specific physical condition, enters a welfare system
and is classified as ‘disabled’ a further discrediting
nomenclature is acquired. The individual who
seeks welfare benefit due to a physical disability
is attributed the stigma of ‘dependent’ on becom-
ing registered as a claimant (Spicker, 1984).
Whatever their derivation, classifications can
perpetuate or intensify stigmas and constitute
new spoiled identities with attendant social conse-
quences for the individual (Lemert, 1967, pp. 40–
64). Consider, for example, the social implications
for the carrier of being identified as having a spe-
cific illness classified as ‘communicable’ as opposed
to non-communicable, or ‘sexually transmitted’
compared to ‘congenital’ (Volinn, 1989). The
imputed identity of the categorised deviant may
also become a source of ‘‘role engulfment’’ (Schur,
1971, p. 69) such that ‘‘The person becomes the
thing he is described as being’’ (Tannenbaum,
1938, p. 20). The assignment of official classifica-
tions such as ‘disabled’ may encourage the assump-
tion of ‘‘an identity as ‘‘disabled’’ that is hard to
shed’’, particularly where repeated encounters with
relevant agencies socialise the subject and assume
characteristic behavioural traits of the individual
so classified (Stone, 1984, pp. 158, 183).
Accounting, as a technology of classification,
abstraction and summarization has the potential
to crystallise extant discredited personal identities
and confer additional stigmatised collective identi-
ties. Classificatory descriptions in accounting
records which ascribe esteemed or degraded sta-
tuses to individuals and groups are stereotype-
reinforcing and may impact on behaviour,
 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
self-typing and social interaction. As facilitative of
classification accounting may create, institutional-
ise or reinforce stereotypes and official labels of
individuals as at best ‘different’, and at worst, devi-
ant (Goffman, 1990, pp. 51–52; Spicker, 1984, pp.
180–181). Conversely, as a technique which may
record and categorise positive attributes, account-
ing may encourage the augmentation rather than
diminishment of personal and collective statuses.
Communication and spoiled identity
As a process involving the communication and
disclosure of information accounting may also
compromise the veiling of stigma. The adverse con-
sequences of a stigma may be restricted if knowl-
edge of the cause of differentness can be hidden.
Deviant behaviour kept secret is not stigmatising
(Falk, 2001, p. 22). Because a stigma is relational,
socially defined, and is only discrediting when per-
ceived as such by others, a key concern of the stig-
matised individual is ‘‘managing information
about his failing’’ and negotiating its concealment
or disclosure (Goffman, 1990, p. 57). Goffman
makes the important distinction between those stig-
matising attributes which are visible and those that
are concealable. In the former case the individual’s
identity is ‘discredited’, in the latter he is ‘discredit-
able’ (1990, p. 14). The control of knowledge about
a stigma is therefore central to whether the discred-
itable becomes discredited (Page, 1984, p. 21).
According to Lemert (1967, p. 42) ‘‘Stigmatiza-
tion describes a process attaching visible signs of
moral inferiority to persons, such as invidious
labels, marks, brands, or publicly disseminated
information’’ (emphasis added). Visibility, or ‘evid-
entness’ is a key feature in the dialectic of identity
formation engaging the self and the public; in the
social relationship between the stigmatised and
stigmatiser (Crocker et al., 1998; Williams, 2000).
For some physical attributes, such as facial disfig-
urement, veiling a stigma may be impossible and
reactions of the stigmatiser to the stigmatised are
substantially conditioned by the visibility of the
stigma. Where the stigma is less perceptible or
known about, there is greater scope for informa-
tion management and normalised exchanges
between stigmatised and stigmatiser.
463
It is apparent that for the stigmatised person
issues of visibility, of concealment versus disclo-
sure, become ‘‘a crucial decision with major conse-
quences for social legitimacy and interaction. If he
is open about his stigma, he risks rejection; if he
hides it and is then discovered, or if his stigma is
already known about, he may be rejected more’’
(Spicker, 1984, p. 147; Jones et al., 1984, pp. 27–
36; 202–130; Smart & Wegner, 2000).9 The poten-
tial role of accounting, as a practice of identifica-
tion, in this tension becomes apparent. Once a
hitherto concealed stigma is made a matter of
record and public disclosure the individual’s
capacity to control the dissemination of discredit-
ing information (an important dimension of cop-
ing with spoiled identity) is diminished (Elliott,
Ziegler, Altman, & Scott, 1982). Increased visibil-
ity potentially transforms the relationship between
the stigmatised and the stigmatiser. In some
instances the impact of the dissemination of docu-
mented information relating to a stigmatised indi-
vidual may be restricted by institutional
confidentiality, as in some agencies of correction
or treatment. However, it may also be transmitted
legitimately through inter-agency exchanges, unof-
ficially ‘leaked’ or illicitly obtained (Erikson &
Gilbertson, 1969; Rule, 1973, pp. 78–84, 161–
166, 333–338). Worse, stigmatising information
could be rendered public as a result of litigation
– through media reporting of a fraudulent welfare
claimant, or the disclosure of the recipients of pub-
lic assistance in welfare rolls (Abbott, 1952):
‘‘Conviction in a court of law and even accusations
not proven lead to public condemnation. This is
no doubt the most important part of the stigmati-
zation process. Included in this process are status-
reduction ceremonies such as a ‘‘hearing’’, a
‘‘trial’’, and the establishment of a public record
of such a procedure’’ (Falk, 2001, pp. 329–330).
In the historical case to which we now turn the
stigmatising publication of the names of the poor
comprised an element of a comprehensive account-
ing system.
9
Studies indicate that AIDS related stigma impacts signifi-
cantly on the decision of those diagnosed as HIV-positive to
disclose their condition to the non-infected (Clark, Lindner,
Armistead, & Austin, 2003).
464 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
Accounting and the new poor law
According to one historian:
The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was
the single most important piece of social legis-
lation ever enacted. Its radical redefinition of
the principles of social policy fixed the param-
eters for all subsequent debate and discussion.
Its organizing assumptions cast a continuing
shadow over attitudes towards the nature of
social obligation and dependency. Its imag-
ery, stamped so firmly on our collective
memory, invigorates research, sustains con-
troversy and underscores the continuing rele-
vance of historical understanding in our
everyday lives. The Poor Law touched almost
every aspect of life and labour in Victorian
Britain (Englander, 1998, p. 1; Digby, 1982,
p. 14; Coats, 1973, n.p).
The provisions of this formative statute affected
the lives of a significant proportion of the English
and Welsh population (Lees, 1998, p. 180).
The Poor Law Amendment Act followed the rec-
ommendations of a Royal Commission, appointed
in 1832. The resultant Report and thirteen volumes
of appendices constitutes ‘‘one of the classic docu-
ments of western social history’’ (Checkland &
Checkland, 1974, p. 9; Boyer, 1990, pp. 60–65,
194–212; Crowther, 1983, pp. 11–29; Digby, 1982,
pp. 5–15; Englander, 1998, pp. 9–17; Wood, 1991,
pp. 52–74; Brundage, 1978, pp. 15–103). Before
1834, under the old Poor Law, relief was predomi-
nantly administered by numerous local parishes in
what was widely perceived as a chaotic, costly and
inefficient manner. The 1834 Act provided for a cen-
tralised and uniform pattern of administration by
combinations of parishes – poor law unions – under
the auspices of elected Boards of Guardians served
by salaried officials. The vast administrative exer-
cise was supervised centrally by three Poor Law
Commissioners in London who were empowered
to issue rules and orders in their pursuit of national
uniformity (Webb & Webb, 1963c, pp. 21–87). In
practice, local and regional variation in implemen-
tation patterns frustrated the quest for uniform
administration (Edsall, 1971, pp. 212–219; Englan-
der, 1998, pp. 83–85). Twelve regional Assistant
Commissioners inspected and monitored the imple-
mentation of the Act by local bureaucracies,
assisted the formation of poor law unions and
advised on the construction of union workhouses
(Harling, 1992). By August 1838 14,000 (95%) par-
ishes had formed 580 poor law unions and 350 new
workhouses had been commenced or built (Driver,
1993, p. 37).
One of the principal objects of the Poor Law
Commission appointed under the Poor Law
Amendment Act was to arrest the burden on rate
payers of the rising cost of maintaining the poor.
The principal target was the reduction of outdoor
relief (provided in money or kind to paupers in
their own homes). The 1834 Act assumed that
the able-bodied poor (males in particular), whose
predicament was considered the result of idleness
and immorality, would be rendered ineligible for
outdoor relief. Rather, the poor would be offered
indoor relief in the workhouse. The prospect of
admission to the workhouse, with its deprivation
of liberty, harsh disciplinary regime and subsis-
tence levels determined according to the principle
of ‘less-eligibility’, that is, at a level below that
enjoyed by the lowest-paid independent labourer,
would provide a real test of need. Faced with the
prospect of entering the workhouse it was envis-
aged that the able-bodied poor would be deterred
from applying for relief, re-enter the labour mar-
ket and pursue the individualist self-help necessary
to correct their indolence and improvidence.
The 1834 statute introduced administrative
structures which remained substantially in place
until 1930. There were, however, changes at the cen-
tre. Following the Andover Scandal, where starving
workhouse inmates fought over rotting bones, the
Poor Law Commission was replaced by a Poor
Law Board in 1847. In 1871 the Board’s responsibil-
ities were transferred to the Local Government
Board, and under the Local Government Act,
1929 the functions of the Guardians were trans-
ferred to county and borough councils. The last ves-
tiges of the poor law were not interred until the
passing of the National Assistance Act, 1948
(Crowther, 1983, pp. 30–112; Digby, 1982, pp. 36–
37; Fraser, 1984, pp.41–55; Webb & Webb, 1963c;
Williams, 1981, pp. 52–90; Wood, 1991, pp. 75–
185).
 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
Accounting featured as an important compo-
nent of the operation of the new Poor Law. Hav-
ing conducted extensive enquiries into the
administration of the old Poor Law, including
the defects of current accounting arrangements
(Walker, 2004), the Royal Commissioners recom-
mended in their Report of 1834 that a central poor
law board ‘‘be empowered and required to take
measures for the general adoption of a complete,
clear, and, as far as may be practicable, uniform
system of accounts’’ (Checkland & Checkland,
1974, pp. 444–445; Coombs & Edwards, 1990).
Demands for a national, uniform system of keep-
ing parochial accounts were reinforced when the
Poor Law Bill to implement the recommendations
of the Royal Commission was debated (Hansard,
3rd series, vol. 23, pp. 1280–1282, 1299–1302).
Under section 15 of the subsequent statute, An
Act for the Amendment and Better Administration
of the Laws Relating to the Poor in England and
Wales, 1834 the Poor Law Commissioners, issued
orders to the parishes and poor law unions on
matters ranging from the management of work-
houses to ‘‘the keeping, examining, auditing, and
allowing of Accounts’’ (4&5 Will. IV cap. 76).
Uniformity would be secured by devising, pre-
scribing and issuing an accounting system for
implementation in all unions and parishes. The
Poor Law Commission set about implementing a
comprehensive accounting regime which encom-
passed much more than financial record keeping:
Looking at the documents turned out by the
Commission in its first year it is impossible
not to be struck by the thoroughness and effi-
ciency of the newly-created machine which
produced them. Detailed account books list-
ing every garment issued to a pauper, certif-
icates for ‘extras’ prescribed for the sick, diet
sheets, suggested salary scales for workhouse
staff, these and hundreds of other documents
poured out of Somerset House in a never-
ending stream (Longmate, 1974, p. 63).
The first general ‘Order for the Keeping, Exam-
ining and Auditing of Accounts’ containing 25
model forms, together with detailed instructions
for their completion and audit, was issued by the
Poor Law Commissioners in September 1835
465
(Order, 1835). The letter accompanying the order
by Edwin Chadwick, the Benthamite Secretary to
the Commission, reiterated the virtues of a ‘‘cor-
rect and uniform system of accounts’’ and the duty
placed on officers to keep them carefully (Order,
1835, p. 90). The system comprised four elements:
the parish accounts kept by the churchwardens
and overseer of the poor; the union accounts to
be kept by the clerk to the board of guardians;
the workhouse accounts to be kept by the master
of the workhouse, and the accounts of out door
relief to be kept by the relieving officer. As one
commentator observed, ‘‘Altogether an extremely
elaborate and comprehensive system of bookkeep-
ing was pressed on the adoption of the new
unions’’ (MacKay, 1899, p. 170).
Following extensive inquiry, correspondence
and ‘‘much careful consideration’’ (Nicholls,
1904, p. 321) an ‘Amended Order for Keeping
and Auditing the Accounts of Unions’ was issued
in 1836. Although the fundamentals of the system
prescribed in 1835 remained in place the amending
order introduced a number of refinements includ-
ing the addition of a fifth element, the accounts
of the medical officer (Amended Order, 1836).
The forms prescribed under this order, which also
reiterated the importance of accurate and punctual
accounting, are illustrated in Table 1. Subsequent
orders were issued in response to legislative
changes which impacted on the accounting system.
Among the most important was the Poor Law
Amendment Act, 1844, which required the bian-
nual as opposed to quarterly audit of accounts,
necessitated the issue of a revised ‘General Order
as to the Keeping and Auditing of the Accounts
of Unions, and of Parishes therein’ in March
1847.10 The revised order provided an opportunity
to make a number of changes designed to render
the accounting system ‘‘more complete’’, enhance
the accuracy of statistics submitted to the centre,
and introduce more satisfactory checks against
peculation (General order, 1847; Twelfth Annual
Report, 1846, p. 23; Thirteenth Annual Report,
1847, p. 14). The accounting order of 1847 also
increased the number of prescribed forms to 38,
10
On auditing under the new Poor Law see Coombs and
Edwards (1990), Harling (1992) and Robson (1930).
466 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
partly to facilitate more thorough accounting for
workhouse provisioning and clothing. The
accounts of collectors of the poor rates were also
separately identified in the parish accounts and
the fifth element of the system now concerned
statements by the auditor.
Legislative change in the form of the Union
Chargeability Act, 1865 resulted in the issuance
of another amending accounting order in 1867.
This provided a further opportunity to make alter-
ations ‘‘which the experience of many years has
shown to be desirable’’ (General Order, 1867, p.
125). The changes concerned the keeping of addi-
tional books of account, some of which had
already been introduced voluntarily by many
Table 1
Prescribed forms and books of account under the new Poor Law, 1836 and 1867
Amended Order for Keeping and Auditing the
Accounts of Unions, 1836
Parish accounts kept by churchwardens and overseers
(Schedule A)
Rate book
Rate receipt check-book
Bastardy receipt check-book
General receipt check-book
Book of receipts and payments
Quarterly statement of receipts and payments by
the parish officers
Terrier of lands belonging to the parish
Inventory of funds, securities and money
belonging to the parish
General accounts of the union kept by the clerk to the
board of guardians (Schedule B)
Minute book
Ledger
Order check-book
Check book of admissions into and discharges
from the workhouse
Pauper description book
Abstract of the application and report book
Quarterly abstract of paupers relieved
and money expended
Quarterly abstract of the separate accounts of
each parish in the union
List of paupers belonging to the parish relieved
during the quarter
unions. New forms were introduced to account
for ‘necessaries’ and in relation to Collectors of
the Poor Rate with a view to protecting rate payers
from fraud and embezzlement (p. 126). Other
changes in 1867 were deemed matters of detail
(General Order, 1867, pp. 51–126). Table 1 reveals
the increased number of prescribed forms and
accounts in 1867 compared with 1836.
The accounting system defined in the 1867
order remained substantially in place into the
20th century. However, various changes were
necessitated by impacting statutes and other regu-
lations. For example, alterations to the prescribed
dietary of inmates required a Workhouse Regula-
tion (Dietaries and Accounts) Order in 1900 which
General Order for Regulating the Keeping,
Examining, Closing, and Auditing of Union and
Parochial Accounts, 1867
Parish accounts kept by overseers and collectors
of the poor rate (Schedule A)
Rate book
Overseers’ book of receipts and payments
Balance sheet of the overseers’ receipts and
payments for the half year
Rate receipt check book
General receipt check book
Installment rate receipt check book
Terrier of lands and tenements belonging
to the parish
Inventory of stock, monies, and effects
belonging to the parish
Collecting and deposit book
Collector’s monthly statement
Collector’s unpaid rates statement
General accounts of the union kept by the clerk
to the board of guardians (Schedule B)
General ledger
Parochial ledger
Non-settled poor ledger
Relief order book
Order check book
Pauper classification book
Petty cash book
Statement of the number of the several classes
of paupers relieved in the half year
Statement of account of receipts, expenditure,
balances and liabilities for the half year
The parochial list and statement of account
 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
Table 1 (continued)
Amended Order for Keeping and Auditing the
Accounts of Unions, 1836
Accounts of the workhouse kept by the master of the
workhouse (Schedule C)
Inventory book
Admission and discharge book
Register of births in the workhouse
Register of deaths in the workhouse
Weekly indoor relief list
Abstract of the weekly indoor relief list
Provision check account
Provision receipt and consumption account
Clothing materials receipt and conversion book
Clothing receipt book
Clothing expenditure book
Indoor labour book
Accounts of outdoor relief and outdoor paupers kept
by the relieving officer (Schedule D)
Application and report book
Weekly outdoor relief list
Abstract of weekly outdoor relief
Outdoor receipt and expenditure book
Medical relief accounts kept by the medical officer
(Schedule E)
Register of sickness and mortality
Weekly return book
Source: Second Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, Appendix A, pp. 95–120. Appendix to the 19th Annual Report of the
Poor Law Board, 1867, pp. 51–125.
467
General Order for Regulating the Keeping,
Examining, Closing, and Auditing of Union and
Parochial Accounts, 1867
Accounts of the workhouse kept by the master
of the workhouse (Schedule E)
Inventory book
Admission and discharge book
Admission and discharge book for vagrants
Indoor relief list
Abstract of the indoor relief list
Master’s day book
Master’s book of receipts and payments
Master’s receipt check book
Quarterly summary of the Master’s day book
Daily provisions consumption account
Weekly provisions consumption account
Provisions receipt and consumption account
Quarterly summary of provisions received and consumed
Quarterly balance of the provisions account
Clothing materials receipt and conversion account
Clothing receipt and expenditure account
Clothing register book
Necessaries and miscellaneous account
Quarterly summary of the necessaries and
miscellaneous account
Quarterly balance of the necessaries and
miscellaneous account
Farm account
Accounts of outdoor relief and outdoor paupers
kept by the relieving officer (Schedule F)
Application and report book
Outdoor relief list
Outdoor relief list for vagrants
Abstract of the outdoor relief
Relieving officer’s receipt and expenditure book
Quarterly summary of receipts and expenditure
Book to be kept by the Collector of the Guardians (Schedule C)
Collector’s book
Collector’s receipt
Book to be kept by the treasurer (Schedule D)
Treasurer’s book of receipts and payments
Statement of the auditor (Schedule G)
Audit statement concerning books of the clerk, treasurer and collector
Audit statement concerning books of the master of the workhouse
Audit statement concerning books of the relieving officer
Audit statement concerning books of the overseers or collector
Audit report to the poor law board
468 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
introduced six new accounting forms in work-
houses (Dietaries in workhouses, 1900; Webb &
Webb, 1963c, pp. 248–249). This disrupted the
working of the extant accounting system and
increased the bureaucratic burdens on workhouse
masters. In 1901 the Local Government Board
appointed a Departmental Committee to inquire
into the keeping of workhouse accounts. The
Committee reported in 1902 that ‘‘No changes of
the principles which govern the system of accounts
have been made since its introduction 55 years
ago, and this seems to us to bear conclusive testi-
mony to its practical merits’’ (Report, 1903, p.v;
Dumsday, 1907, pp. 274–288). However, the Com-
mittee considered the system of workhouse
accounts to be over elaborate. It recommended
simplification, a marginal decrease in the number
of account books, and changes to enhance the con-
trol of expenditure.
By the time of the Local Government Act, 1929
the accounting attending the administration of the
poor law remained extensive and complex. An
instructional text on poor law accounts dated
1926–1927 ran to four volumes and illustrated
the keeping of 80 accounting forms for poor law
institutions and over 50 relating to outdoor relief
(Inchley, 1926–7). From among the numerous
individuals involved in poor law accounting
emerged a group who attempted to professionalise
their specialism through the formation, in 1923, of
an Institute of Poor Law Accountants Ltd (The
Accountant, 6.9.1930; Stacey, 1954, pp. 126–128).
However, the keepers of poor law accounts are less
of concern here than the pauper identities that
were recorded in them.
Poor law accounting and spoiled identity
The stigma of pauperism
As indicated above the concept of stigma has
been widely employed by students of social policy
and welfare administration. Because it focuses
attention on relations between the identity of the
poor and the non-poor, studies of stigma assist
in identifying attitudes towards the poor, the expe-
rience of poverty and the position of the poor in
the social structure (Waxman, 1977, p. 68). The
new Poor Law has been accorded a central place
in the stigmatisation of poverty.
The provisions of the Poor Law Amendment
Act, 1834 were intentionally stigmatising. The
rhetoric of stigmatisation, seldom employed in
relation to the old Poor Law, was prevalent in
the new statute (Spicker, 1984, pp. 9–19). Spicker
concludes that under the 1834 Act ‘‘stigma became
the principal method by which deterrence was
maintained’’ (1984, p. 23). It was assumed that
the threat of the workhouse regime and the morti-
fication of self it entailed would encourage the
able-bodied to find alternative means of support.
The new Poor Law was imbued with assumptions
about poverty as a consequence of moral failure
and the attendant notion of pauperism as ‘‘disrep-
utable poverty’’ (Waxman, 1977, pp. 70, 80–82). It
sought to ascribe guilt to vice. One commentator
referred to the workhouse as ‘‘an asylum for a
number of persons afflicted with some of the worst
evils to which flesh and spirit are heirs’’ (Fowle,
1881, p. 140). Admission to the workhouse itself
was associated with spoiled identity: ‘‘Regarded
as a refuge for undesirables, the workhouse gave
its inmates a greater stigma than applied to those
in receipt of outdoor relief’’ (Wood, 1991, p. 99).
The Poor Law Commissioners recognised that
opponents of the 1834 Act stigmatized workhouses
as ‘bastilles’ (Driver, 1993, p. 64).
The workhouse was also perceived as ‘‘a moral
pest-house’’ (On the Operation of the English Poor-
Laws, 1846), an arena for corruption imparted
through inhabiting the same space as the depraved
and shameless. The pauper of good character was
treated ‘‘as though he had led a drunken, dissolute
life’’ (Minutes of evidence, 1909, vol. 3, p. 131). In
1834 a country overseer wrote of the plight of the
labourer’s wife, recently widowed, who was com-
pelled to enter the workhouse: ‘‘The demoralisa-
tion of herself and her children is here made
matter of absolute compulsion and certainty. Let
her go into the workhouse . . . and in the stigma it
is intended to affix she must lose all sense of shame
as she passes its threshold . . . Virtuous she may
enter, but vicious she must depart’’ (The Griev-
ances of a Country Overseer, 1834). Similarly,
the destitute labourer and his family entering the
 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
workhouse would be contaminated by the inmates
such that ‘‘their morals must be greatly injured by
the stigma and association’’ (The Grievances of a
Country Overseer, 1834).
Stigmatising practices included, in a few par-
ishes, physically ‘badging’ the poor (Spicker, 1984,
pp. 9–19; Walker, 2004). Roberts (1971, p. 8)
related how ‘‘Workhouse paupers hardly registered
as human beings at all. Even in the late 19th century
able-bodied men from some Northern poorhouses
worked in public with a large P stamped on the seat
of their trousers’’. Other humiliations were the
denial of personal possessions and wearing igno-
minious workhouse clothing and uniforms, some-
times for different classes of paupers such as
yellow gowns for unmarried mothers (Crowther,
1983, p. 195; Fraser, 1984, p. 54; Orwell, 1940, p.
199). Debasing consequences of pauper status
included loss of citizenship, withdrawal of the fran-
chise, the pauper funeral and burial in an unmarked
grave (Strange, 2003; Crowther, 1983, pp. 1–2;
Webb & Webb, 1963c, p. 262). Stigmatisation also
attended allied support systems under the Poor
Law such as medical assistance: ‘‘recipients of poor
law infirmary care were as stigmatized as those con-
fined in the workhouse’’ (Marks, 1993; also Webb,
1963a, p. 336; 1963b, p. 748). Despite its reform
by that date, in 1929 the Webbs still complained
about the oppressive legal enshrinement of the pau-
per’s degraded identity in the Poor Law:
This pauper status, whilst affording a definite
legal basis for the ‘‘stigma of pauperism’’, is
a matter of greater moment than any senti-
mental feeling or manifestation of disgrace
or disapproval. The person who, however,
blamelessly, receives Poor Relief in any form,
and even for the briefest period, is, by Eng-
lish law, denied or deprived of certain impor-
tant rights and remedies in invoking the aid
of the Courts of Justice which are enjoyed
by other citizens and which may be necessary
for his protection against serious wrong; he is
subjected to various arbitrary powers from
which other citizens are exempt; he is dis-
qualified, merely by reason of past as well
as of present pauperism, not only for serving
in various offices, but also for receiving vari-
469
ous benefits, such as those of many charities
under Schemes of the Charity Commission-
ers. Finally, he is, in certain circumstances,
subjected, as a pauper inmate if a Poor
Law institution, to arbitrary detention, soli-
tary confinement, diminution of diet, prohi-
bition of smoking, and other punishments,
avowedly as punishments, to which the
non-pauper inmate in analogous institutions,
even if maintained out of public funds, is not
subjected; and this without judicial trial or
sentence, and without appeal (Webb &
Webb, 1963b, pp. 992–994).
The stigmatising intent of official policy proved
effective. For most of those so described: ‘‘Pauper-
ism was a form of degradation and disgrace. To
apply for relief was a cause for self-reproach and
private humiliation; to enter the workhouse was a
public admission of personal and moral failure’’
(Englander, 1998, p. 44).11 Accepting relief trans-
formed the poor individual into a socially damned
‘pauper’. Certainly, the degree of stigmatisation
could vary according to the cause of seeking
relief, its duration and the institution in which it
was received (workhouse, infirmary, home)12
11
The shame of entering the workhouse was reflected in
popular fiction. For example in Clayhanger (Bennett, 1910,
chapter 5) the nine year old Darius and his family were
‘‘ashamed to tears’’ en route to the Bastille. On being placed in
workhouse clothes Darius ‘‘understood the reason for shame; it
was because he could have no distinctive clothes of his own,
because he had somehow lost his identity’’. The stigma was
enduring: ‘‘Darius knew he was ruined; he knew that he was a
workhouse boy for evermore . . . He was now a prisoner,
branded, hopeless’’. Removing stigmatising ‘brands’ and
‘marks’ such as workhouse clothes were early targets for some
poor law reformers (Haw, 1911, pp. 113, 120–121).
12
A number of witnesses before the Royal Commission on the
Poor Laws, 1905–1909 suggested that outdoor relief was less
stigmatising than indoor relief. Booth (1892, p. 120) observed
that, in contrast to the workhouse, no stigma was attached to
the receipt of outdoor relief in cohesive rural communities
where a high proportion of the aged were supported by the
parish. He also noted that whereas periodic medical assistance
of a trifling nature (for extracting a tooth or a bottle of
medicine) left less of a stigma on the recipient, being brought up
in a pauper school might ‘‘leave a stigma for life’’ (1891, p. 601).
One contemporary who attended a school under workhouse
administration referred to ‘‘unspeakable infamy and stigma – in
effect worse than the jail taint’’ (Steel, 1939, p. 72).
470 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
(Crowther, 1978). The perceived ‘shame’ attached
to pauperism also varied spatially and temporally
(Lees, 1998). For example, in the later 19th century
acceptance of the notion that poverty could have
economic causes as opposed to being the conse-
quence of moral deficiency rendered it less stigma-
tising. However, even among the late Victorian
working class, in proud communities which empha-
sised the virtues of respectability, acceptance of
assistance resulted in personal ridicule. Hence
‘‘many workers rejected relief because it had come
to be seen as stigmatizing; others who continued
to need it resented demeaning procedures and any
public loss of status’’ (1998, pp. 298–302; Rose,
1971, p. 316). Childhood residence in the bastille
became an enduring ‘‘mark of opprobrium in the
neighbourhood’’ and an excuse for low wages on
entering the labour market (Minutes of evidence,
1910, vol. 7, p. 225). Among the older poor, the
most significant group of paupers, entry to the
workhouse remained a source of shame even
though poverty was often a symptom of biological
ageing (Thane, 2002, p. 166).
The following sections explore the ways in
which accounting processes, accounting classifica-
tion and the communication of accounting infor-
mation under the new Poor Law also contributed
to the spoiled identity of the pauper.
Accounting processes as rituals of degradation and
stigmatised labelling
Of particular interest to students of social policy
is the extent to which stigma deters potential wel-
fare claimants and the manner in which the admin-
istrative processes attending relief schemes are
themselves stigmatising (Page, 1984, chapter 2).
In order to contain the cost of maintaining pau-
pers and arrest the dependence culture a number
of devices were employed under the new poor
law to deter applicants through stigmatisation.
These included the humiliation of committal to
the workhouse, submission to its discipline and
the application of the principle of less eligibility.
Page has observed that ‘‘The deterrent value of
stigmatisation was . . . clearly recognized by the
Poor Law Commissioners in their report on the
operation of the poor laws’’ (1984, p. 25). Fraser
(1984, p. 55) asserted that ‘‘the stigma of pauper-
ism induced a reluctance to seek official relief’’
and this ‘‘became firmly rooted in popular culture’’
(also Rose, 1971, pp. 170–171; Lees, 1998, pp.
150–151). Spicker has asserted that the stigma of
the new poor law was abhorrent and enduring
(1984, p. 54): ‘‘For over a century, people who
claimed poor relief were the objects of a policy
intended to deter them from seeking help and
mark them off from the normal members of soci-
ety’’ (p. 7). Digby (1982, p. 17) argues that ‘‘The
cruelty of the workhouse did not reside in its mate-
rial deprivation but in its psychological harshness.
Indeed, the Poor Law Commissioners themselves
appreciated that it was through psychological
rather than material deterrence that the work-
house test would operate’’ (also Thompson,
1991, pp. 295–296).
The functioning of bureaucratic practices such
as accounting in the mortification of self and stig-
matisation of the pauper has hitherto been unex-
plored. Yet, contemporaries referred to it.
George Lansbury, Leader of the Labour Party,
1931–1935, was elected as a Guardian of the Poor
in Poplar in 1892. In his autobiography he recalled
his first visit to a workhouse and the degrading
ordeal which awaited the new inmate:
It was not necessary to write up the words
‘‘Abandon all hope ye who enter here’’. Offi-
cials, receiving ward, hard forms, white-
washed walls, keys dangling at the waist of
those who spoke to you, huge books for
name, history, etc., searching, and then being
stripped and bathed in a communal tub, and
the final crowning indignity of being dressed
in clothes which has been worn by lots of
other people, hideous to look at, ill-fitting
and coarse – everything possible was done
to inflict mental and moral degradation
(Lansbury, 1928, pp. 135–136).
Decades later George Orwell recalled the book-
ing procedure on admission to Romton Casual
Ward: ‘‘Some time after six the gates opened and
we began to file in one at a time. In the yard was
an office where an official entered in a ledger our
names and trades and ages, also the places we were
coming from and going to’’ (Orwell, Down and Out
 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
in Paris and London, 1940, p. 145; Rose, 1971, p.
210). On entering Whiston Casual Ward after
1918 a former tramp related how his details were
inscribed in ‘‘a huge red leather-bound ledger that
looked like the Book of Ages’’ (Vose, 1981, p. 19).
Poor law admission procedures were consistent
with Goffman’s degradation ceremonies in the
total institution: the applicant presented his case
for relief before the Board of Guardians, on being
committed to the workhouse s/he was placed in a
reception room, examined by a medical officer
and deemed able-bodied or infirm. If diseased s/
he was sent to the sick or lunatic ward. The family
was broken up, clothes were removed, ‘‘purified’’,
labelled and placed in store. The pauper was
searched, ‘‘thoroughly cleansed’’ and provided
with workhouse dress. S/he was ‘‘classified’’ and
physically assigned to the ward which accommo-
dated his class, provided with a prescribed dietary
and allocated appropriate work (Orders and Reg-
ulations [No. 9], 1835, pp. 59–61; Consolidated
General Order, 1847–8, pp. 14–18; Crowther,
1983, pp. 193–195; Longmate, 1974, p. 93). One
indoor pauper recalled that the worst abuse of
the workhouse system was the demeaning orienta-
tion of its officers towards inmates (One of Them,
1885, p. 120). The scarring practices of physical
separation, bathing, issuance of pauper apparel,
interrogation and ‘booking’ feature large in the
contemporary accounts of those who recalled their
experience of entering the workhouse (One of
Them, 1885, p. 13; Shaw, 1946, pp. 27–28; Stanley,
1909, pp. 10–13). One autobiographer related that
his ‘‘experiences of that day were burned into my
brain as with a branding-iron’’ (Steel, 1939, pp.
78–79).
Accounting featured among the debasing proce-
dures the pauper was obliged to suffer. It also con-
tributed to the appellation of precise, potentially
stigmatising, labels on the pauper which might
subsist during his receipt of relief. Record keeping
was individualised. Entry to the workhouse was by
written order issued by the Board of Guardians,
the Relieving Officer or Overseer and was pre-
sented by the pauper to the master.13 Details about
13
According to Longmate (1974, p. 63) the Admission Order
Book was ‘‘the foundation of the whole system’’.
471
the pauper were entered in an Admission and Dis-
charge Book (name, when born, parish, occupa-
tion, marital status if adult, legitimate/bastard if
child; whether able-bodied; cause of disability,
relief received from other sources, reasons for
seeking relief, and observations on condition at
admission). Subsequently, other aspects of the
pauper’s institutional career were inscribed in
books of account: birth and death, days in the
workhouse, diet allocated, clothing issued, daily
labour performed, sickness incurred and punish-
ment received. The pauper’s release from the sys-
tem was detailed in the Admission and Discharge
Book.
The Poor Law Commissioners were aware of
the impact of exhaustive examination and disclo-
sure as a disincentive to applicants for relief
(MH1/2, 20.5.1835). In September 1835 Assistant
Commissioner Adey informed Commissioner
Lefevre of the benefits of the Relieving Officer pre-
paring a statement on the circumstances and char-
acter of an applicant which was read on
appearance before the Board of Guardians: ‘‘The
effect of this in one of my unions was that a
man, who had all his failings exposed turned
round and left the room, saying he be d–d if he
would stand that, and I have no doubt the usage
of this sort of exposure, which the pauper is
aware . . . has deterred many applicants’’ (MH32/
5, 14.9.1835). Several decades later a medical offi-
cer in Lancashire submitted the following evidence
to the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws: ‘‘It is
the unanimous opinion that destitute persons will
not seek Poor Law relief if they can possibly help
it, owing to the stigma that must ever after rest
upon them, and the ordeal of questions and expo-
sure of their private affairs’’ (Minutes of evidence,
1909, vol. 4, p. 655). The anguish of interrogation
and the parading of personal failure when apply-
ing for relief were also referred to in contemporary
biographies (Hillocks, 1865, p. 128; Oxley, 1938,
pp. 106–117; Ratcliffe, 1935, p.85; Woodward,
1983, pp. 16–17).
Awareness of the disincentive effects of compre-
hensive and individuated data collection under the
Poor Law accounting system was particularly
apparent in relation to outdoor relief. Under
the Commission’s accounting order of 1835 the
472 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
Relieving Officer was obliged to complete Form 22,
The Pauper Description Book.14 This contained
alphabetically indexed descriptions of each outdoor
pauper in the district. Given their assault on out-
door relief the Commissioners considered this a par-
ticularly important book of account. Their letter of
instructions stated: ‘‘So many minute though most
important details are required to be entered in this
book, that it must be made and kept with the great-
est care. The instructions attached to the book must
be strictly attended to’’ (Order, 1835, p. 94). Those
instructions focussed on locating the moral and
social identities of the applicant and served to
inscribe new ones. Data was to be entered on the
claimant’s address, occupation, reasons for seeking
relief, whether able or disabled, family status, and
remarks (p. 87). Among the detailed instructions
was a requirement that the Relieving Officer identify
each member of the family claiming relief together
with their relationship and ‘‘any personal defects
of a child, in case it is crippled or rendered more bur-
thensome’’ (p. 87). The scope for ascribing paupers
with stigmatising identities becomes clear. In rela-
tion to recording the reasons for seeking relief:
5. You will take especial care to inquire closely
into the causes of the claims for relief, and to
insert correct descriptions of them.
6. In specifying the alleged causes of the claims to
relief by Able-bodied Adult Labourers, where
the claim is founded on the loss of work, name
the particular sort of work: as, in the case of an
Agricultural Labourer, ‘‘Farm given up’’;
‘‘Conversion of arable into pasture’’: if an Arti-
san, ‘‘Failure’’, or ‘‘Shutting up of manufac-
tory’’. Where you can ascertain from parties
well acquainted with the claimants, you will
add your conclusion as to the real cause, when-
ever it differs from the alleged cause, as ‘‘Indo-
lence, habitual vagrant’’, ‘‘Indolence, habitual
pauper’’; so in the cases of Discharged Domes-
tic Servants you will state the cause of dis-
charge, as ‘‘Discharged for misconduct, or
indolence, or negligence, or on disagreement
simply’’.
14
From 1836 these detailed instructions applied to the
Application and Report Book (see Longmate, 1974, pp. 68–69).
7. In specifying the causes of the claims for relief
of Children who become burthensome from
the unwillingness or inability of their parents
to provide for themselves, or for more than
themselves, you will specify the nature of the
inability or other cause: as, ‘‘Father’s insanity’’;
‘‘Father’s inability to obtain work’’; ‘‘Father
absent as militiaman, as soldier, or soldier, or
marine’’; ‘‘Father absent from home’’ –
‘‘alleged in search of work’’; ‘‘Father fled from
debt’’; ‘‘Father fled for delinquency-imprisoned
for stealing-imprisoned for smuggling’’ (p. 87).
Those suffering from illness were to be stigma-
tised and labelled as follows:
8. In cases arising from Infirmity of Mind, you will
designate the extent of the infirmity; as in the
case of Lunatics, ‘‘Lunatic, slightly’’; ‘‘Lunatic,
maliciously mischievous’’; ‘‘Lunatic, raving’’;
‘‘Lunatic, melancholy’’; so in the case of Idiots,
insert, ‘‘Weak in Mind’’; ‘‘Absolute idiot’’.
9. In describing the causes arising from Infirmity
of Body, you will specify them in the manner
following: as ‘‘Deaf and dumb’’; ‘‘Deaf,
totally’’. In the case of Cripples, the loss, or
the loss of the use of ‘‘one hand’’, of ‘‘both
hands’’, of ‘‘one leg’’. In cases of Helplessness
or Feebleness, you will designate the description
of the helplessness or feebleness; as, ‘‘Helpless,
old age’’; ‘‘Helpless, epilepsy’’ (p. 87).
Such labelling was not confined to the Pauper
Description Book. Several books of account
offered scope for their keepers to inscribe ‘general
observations’, or ‘remarks’ on individual recipients
of relief. These were intended to record and exhibit
the ‘‘true situation and character’’ of the pauper
(Order, 1835, p. 94). For example, the Admission
and Discharge Book (to and from the workhouse)
contained a column for ‘Observations on Condi-
tion at the Time of Admission, or on general Char-
acter and Behaviour in Workhouse’. The Indoor
Labour Book (1835–1847) contained a ‘remarks’
column in which willingness, idleness or refusal
to work could be entered. Table 2 illustrates the
results of a review of stigmatising labels entered
for individuated paupers in a variety of poor law
 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487 473

Table 2
Illustrative stigmatising labels ascribed to individual paupers in poor law accounts
Attribute Stigmatising label
Physical Disability Blind, wooden leg, deaf, deaf and dumb, lame, paralysed, one leg, one arm, bad face,
paralytic, cripple, burnt, deformed, disabled
Illness Syphilis, venereal, boils, abscess, takes fits, epilepsy, scabies, itch, fever, smallpox,
consumption, scrofula, dropsy, cholera, cancer, ulcers of leg, ague, diarrhoea,
incontinence, uterine disease, varicose veins, prolapsus of uterus, leprosy, diseased
Age Old age, infirm, feeble, past labour
Mental Disability Insane, to/from asylum, idiot, idiotic, insane, lunatic, imbecile, weak intellect,
derangement, dementia, weak minded, out of her mind, not right in mind, simple,
foolish
Illness Melancholia
Addiction Alcoholic poisoning, drunkenness, habitual drunkard, drinks too much, given to drink,
drinks
Moral Sexual Pregnant (and unmarried), prostitute, going to meet men, caught with girl, illegitimate,
bastard, confined with bastard, mother of bastard, family of bastards, cohabits, living in
adultery, filthy conduct/language, obscene, loose, saucy
Criminal (breaches of Absconded, thief, thievish, stealing, embezzling, complete vagabond, sent to prison (for
law and poor law rules) stealing workhouse provisions, clothes, damaging workhouse property, violence
towards inmates/staff), been in prison, from prison, transported, deserted her child,
imposter, foul-mouthed, uses profane language, disobedient, insolent, insubordinate,
violent, disorderly, refractory, impertinent
Industry Refused/unwilling to work, wont work, dislikes work, idle, idly disposed, idler, lazy,
listless, slovenly, indolent
Temperance Drunk, half drunk, drunken
General Bad (gradations of), bad character, sly, artful, deceitful, ill-behaved, impudent,
quarrelsome, troublesome, worthless
Poverty Unemployment Tramp, vagrant, out of work, want of employ, cant work, incapable of work, unable to
labour, no labour/work/employment, insufficient earnings
Means of Support Destitute, indigent, deserted (by spouse/parent), turned out by husband, orphan,
(spouse/parent) in prison/asylum/transported/absconded, mother/father could not
keep/maintain, large family, spendthrift father, improvident, unable to support,
neglected, no home
Cleanliness Dirty (various gradations), filthy, not clean, lice bitten, full of/swarming with vermin,
refused to wash, ragged, shabby
Tribal Nationality From America, Irish
Sources: The table is compiled from entries in the following account books: DnGnCL/60, DnGnD/60, DnGnF/60, DnGnF/81,
DnGnF/121, DnGnF/133, DnGnF/134, DnGnF/141, DnGnK/60, DnGnSM/60, DnGnSM/133, DnGnWN/60, DnGnWN/133,
DnGnY/60, DnGnY/134, U/M 28, U/M 32, U/Pp 60.

accounting records in the counties of Glamorgan
and Somerset during the 19th century. The table
reveals that the labels implied varying intensities
of stigmatisation. At one extreme, tainting descrip-
tors reflect the involuntary onset of ageing and
physical illness. At the other they communicate
the moral depravity associated with sexual license
and criminality.
It is evident that some of the terms applied in
poor law accounts would have potentially signifi-
cant impacts on self perception and on organisa-
tional and societal orientation towards the
pauper. Ascribed labels such as ‘venereal’, ‘lep-
rosy’, ‘lunatic’, ‘drunkard’, ‘illegitimate’, ‘thief’
and ‘filthy’ imply behavioural expectations and
encourage moral judgements. Such labels may be
interpreted by the receiver as alarm signals; they
suggest a threat of contamination which may at
best restrict interaction, or at worst legitimate
ostracism and oppression (Rhodes & Sagor, 1976).
474 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
Accounting, classification and the creation of
additional spoiled identities
As mentioned earlier, classifications applied by
social agencies tend to reflect the perceptions and
objectives of those in positions of power. Their
application to accounting serves to operationalise
the priorities of those who design them (Rains,
Kitsuse, Duster, & Freidson, 1976). Classification
systems are a form ‘‘of social and psychic control
for the dominant culture bearers, who determine
inclusion and exclusion from the social main-
stream’’ (Rhodes & Sagor, 1976).
Classification was central to the operation of the
new Poor Law. The emphasis on classification
should be interpreted in the context of the decline
of natural determinism in 19th century thought
which encouraged the management of populations.
The consequence was a focus on statistical gather-
ing which produced ‘‘an avalanche of printed num-
bers. The nation-states classified, counted and
tabulated their subjects anew’’ (Hacking, 1990, p.
2). Enumeration required increasingly finer degrees
of categorisation (Hacking, 1990, pp. 3, 133–137;
Bowker & Star, 1999, pp. 16–26). Categorisation
enabled the determination of the norm and nor-
malcy and its corollary, the identification and treat-
ment of abnormality and deviance (Hacking, 1990,
pp. 160–169). The notion emerged in Western Eur-
ope and North America that the identification of
deviant subpopulations through enumeration and
classification was a precursor to their control and
improvement (Hacking, 1990, pp. 118–120; Roth-
man, 1971, pp. 147–154, 190). Late Victorian social
reformers such as Charles Booth set about classify-
ing paupers, drawing heavily on the accountings of
local poor law officials, to categorise the principal
causes of poverty as ‘drink’, ‘immorality’, ‘laziness’,
‘sickness’, ‘deranged’ and ‘old age’ (Booth, 1891;
1892, pp. 243–343). Classifications also impacted
on perceptions of self among the classified and on
their relation to others. Contemporaries who
described life in the workhouse often related typol-
ogies of fellow inmates informed by the moral label-
ling inherent in official classifications (One of Them,
1885; Stanley, 1909, pp. 11–13).
Poor law classification, which had been
advocated by Bentham in Pauper Management
Improved, 1797 (Knott, 1986, p. 47), was founded
on the notion that poverty was a symptom of
immorality and defective character – of indolence,
improvidence or vice. The classificatory schema
employed under the new Poor Law, such as
‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor, the ‘able’ and
‘non-able bodied’, recipient of relief ‘in money’
or ‘in kind’, prescribed official objectified identities
that were stigmatising. Being classified as ‘unde-
serving’ was particularly recognised as having a
‘‘most degrading effect’’ (Minutes of evidence,
1909, vol. 3, p. 135). These classifications, acti-
vated on entry to the poor law system, were com-
pounded by the acquisition of the more
generalised but no less diminishing appellation of
dependent ‘pauper’. The unemployed male, the
deserted wife, widow or orphan, was also identi-
fied as a ‘pauper’ on receipt of relief. This classifi-
cation located the claimant at the base of the social
hierarchy and ascribed membership of an institu-
tionalised ‘‘class apart’’ (Minutes of evidence,
1909, vol. 3, p. 66). The ascription of these nega-
tive classificatory labels was recognised as a device
for discouraging claimants.
For Lees categorisation reflected the social
reimagining of the poor during the early-mid
19th century, and ‘‘created a set of meanings about
‘‘paupers’’’’ as socially diseased and contaminating
(1998, p. 126–145). Stone (1984, pp. 39–55) consid-
ers the increasing elaboration of classificatory
labels such as ‘sick’, ‘insane’, ‘defective’, ‘aged
and infirm’ to differentiate the mass of paupers
to be the most striking aspect of the Victorian poor
relief. The centrality of the concept of classification
to the administration of the new Poor Law and its
‘‘semiotic and disciplinary functions’’ feature sig-
nificantly in Driver’s study of the workhouse sys-
tem (1993, pp. 5, 66–71, 95–111). Indeed, Driver
argues that ‘‘the question of classification lay at
the heart of the discourse of workhouse policy’’
(p. 105). Classification not only involved ascribing
stigmatised labels, it determined the ‘‘moral geog-
raphy’’ of the workhouse, its architectural design
and the utilisation of institutional space. Classifi-
cation involved the physical segregation of classes
of paupers to prevent moral (and physical) conta-
gion of, for example, children by adults of bad
character (Driver, 1993, p. 65; Fowle, 1881,
 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
p. 143; Knott, 1986, p. 256; Lees, 1998, pp. 276–
280; Marks, 1993). Classification determined
‘‘appropriate management’’ (Williams, 1981,
p. 57), treatment and institutional experiences:
the dispensing of sympathetic care for the impo-
tent; the provision of education for children; the
disciplining of the able-bodied; prescribed diet,
allocation of work and dispensing punishment
appropriate to classification (Englander, 1998,
pp. 24–26, 36; Fowle, 1881, 137–139; Wood,
1991, p. 70). Its physical consequences such as
the separation of husbands and wives and children
from parents were also stigmatising.
Under the rules for the administration of work-
houses seven ‘classes’ of inmates were defined: (1)
aged or infirm men, (2) able-bodied men and
youths above 13 years, (3) youths and boys above
7 years old and below 13 years, (4) aged and infirm
women, (5) able-bodied women and girls aged
above 16 years, (6) girls aged above 7 years and
under 16, (7) children aged under 7 years (Crow-
ther, 1983, pp. 42–43; Digby, 1982, pp. 17–18;
MacKay, 1899, pp. 169–170). Casual paupers
(tramps and vagrants), lunatics, the sick and fev-
ered were also separately classified. Later dis-
courses on poor law reform also invoked other
categorisations such as ‘able-bodied sick’ and
‘able-bodied in health’; ‘improveable’ and ‘unim-
provable’ cases among the feeble minded; and con-
trasts between the ‘respectable’, ‘degenerate’ and
‘work-shy’. Local guardians also introduced sub-
Table 3
Stigmatizing classifications in poor law pro forma account headings, 1835–1903
Book of account Period extant
Pauper description book 1835–1847
Admission and discharge book 1836–1847
Application and report book 1836–1903
Admission and discharge book 1847–1903
In-door relief list 1847–1903
Register of births in the workhouse 1835–1847
Out-relief book 1835–1836
Out-door relief list 1847–1903
Sources: Accounting orders issued by Poor Law Commission and Poor Law Board.
475
categories of classification based on morals and
‘character’ (Crowther, 1978).
The ‘official’ classifications were not only
applied anonymously to classes of pauper in statis-
tical returns and abstracts of accounts. Stigmatis-
ing classifications featured in poor law accounts
including books and forms where the individual
pauper was identified. Classifications employed in
the column headings of accounting records are
revealed in Table 3.
The table indicates the emphasis on identifying
recipients who were able bodied and illegitimate.
Hence, the classification schema applied in
accounting reflected the moral underpinnings of
official attitudes towards poverty and its cure. Stig-
matizing classification was designed by the power-
ful to reveal and address their comprehension of
the moral causes of poverty.
Communication, accounting disclosure and
information management
As related above, disclosure and concealment
are key factors in the management of stigma. It
has been established that a number of accounting
books prescribed under the 1834 Poor Law
recorded stigmatising information about named
paupers. There was little capacity for the pauper
to prevent the leakage of degrading individuated
information to the community in which s/he lived.
Under the first Order for Keeping Accounts (1835)
Stigmatizing classifications
Child: orphan, deserted or bastard
Able-bodied, partially or wholly disabled
Class for diet: 1–9; ‘B’, ‘D’, ‘S’
Able-bodied, not able-bodied
Children: illegitimate or ‘other’, orphan
Legitimate or illegitimate
Able or disabled
Able bodied, not-able bodied; urgent necessity; sickness, accident,
infirmity; want of work; illegitimate; parent in gaol; non-resident male
[deserted/unsupported]; orphan; lunatic, insane, idiot; vagrant
476 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
the books were to be regularly inspected by the
Board of Guardians (Order, 1835). At the quar-
terly compulsory audit of the union and parish
accounts (of which public notice was given), the
officers of every parish in the union were obliged
to produce all books and vouchers ‘‘for the inspec-
tion of the auditor, the board of guardians, the
clerk to the board of guardians and any rate-payer
and owner of property in their parish’’ (p. 69).
The importance attached by the Poor Law
Commissioners to accounting publicity was illus-
trated in September 1836 when the Newport
Union sought advice on whether strangers could
be admitted to meetings when the local Board of
Guardians heard applications for relief. The Com-
missioners asserted that the presence of strangers
at such meetings would provide opportunities for
violent assembly and intimidation, particularly
when decisions were made to refuse relief to ‘indo-
lent’, ‘improvident’ and ‘vicious’ applicants. Fur-
ther, individuated disclosure was now achieved
through another means:
Whilst the Commissioners are fully alive to
the importance of publicity in the proceed-
ings of all public bodies, they conceive they
have sufficiently provided for that object in
directing that all the Books of the Unions
shall be open to inspection: by which the
decision and on enquiry the circumstances
in each case may be known, as well as all
the results of the proceedings of the local offi-
cers (MH1/7, 28.9.1836).
Moreover, ‘‘by the new forms for keeping
accounts not only of money received and
expended, but of things done, a more correct
knowledge and greater control is secured to the
Ratepayers than heretofore’’ (MH1/7, 28.9.1836).
Subsequent regulations affirmed the centrality
of accounting publicity. Following the General
Order on accounting of 1847 half yearly state-
ments and specified books and accounts of the
union were to be made available for inspection,
examination or copying by rate-payers and prop-
erty owners three days before the audit. Certain
records relating to the parishes in the union were
to be sent to the Overseer, presented to the Vestry
and preserved in the parish papers (General order,
1847, pp. 36–38). Under the General Order of 1867
it was provided that the Clerk to the Board of
Guardians ‘‘shall, at all reasonable times, at the
request in writing of any owner of property or rate-
payer in the Union, permit him to inspect the
statements of the Union or Parish accounts in
the possession of the Guardians for the twelve
months prior to the last audit’’ (General Order,
1867, p. 69).
In addition to powers for examining and
inspecting accounting records by local officers
and rate payers there was a more public vehicle
for the disclosure of the discredited status of
named recipients of poor relief – the pauper list.
Under the old Poor Law legislation had permitted
physical ‘badging’ as a means of publicly identify-
ing the pauper, checking imposition and confer-
ring a degraded status to applicants for relief,
particularly the parents of bastards. This tech-
nique was supplanted by the disclosure of the
claimant’s identity through published accounts.
Regular posting of lists of the recipients of relief
on the door of the parish church facilitated the
community surveillance of the local poor and
shamed them as a subordinate ‘dependent’ class
deserving of moral condemnation. Such account-
ing disclosure contributed to the stigmatization
of the pauper and eliminated the possibility of
concealing a discredited social identity (Walker,
2004).
Accounting publicity was continued under the
new Poor Law. In 1835 the Poor Law Commis-
sioners issued an order ‘‘for the Government of a
Board of Guardians’’ (Orders & Regulations
[No. 6], 1835). This specified that every quarter
the Relieving Officer would compile a list of the
paupers in each parish and disclose the amount
of relief given in and out of the workhouse. The
Relieving Officer would ‘‘affix copies of such lists
respectively upon the principal doors of the parish
churches of the parishes or places for which such
lists are made; which copies shall remain so affixed
for three successive Sundays’’ (Orders & Regula-
tions [No. 6], 1835, p. 51). The form and content
of the list (p. 54) permitted the identification of
the pauper, the nature and amount of relief dis-
pensed, and in disclosing the ‘cause of requiring
relief’, ascribed potentially stigmatizing identities.
Table 4
List of paupers, 1836
Name Age Calling Residence Cause of requiring relief Amount of relief out of the workhouse given If in the
during the last quarter Workhouse
In money In kind Total No. of days
Ayton, Jane 5 None Meare Bastard child 13 0 13 0
Batt, Sarah 36 Dressmaker Meare Decrepitude 6 6 6 6
Barnes, Charles 76 Butcher Meare Old age 1 5 0 11 11 1 16 11
Brass, Prapey 43 None Meare Family 1 19 0 1 3 10 3 2 10
Cox, Ann’s children – – Meare Orphan children 2 15 11 2 15 11

S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487

Cox, Ann’s child 4 None Wells Orphan 16 0 3 2½ 19 2½
Crane, William 81 Ditcher Westhay Old age 19 6 11 11 1 11 5
Coombs, Charles 81 Hedger & Ditcher Westhay Old age 1 19 0 1 3 10 3 2 10
Corp, George 17 Servant Meare Weak in mind (idiot) 9 6 11 0 1 0 6
Cox, Sarah – None Glastonbury Infirmity 1 12 6 2 0 1 14 6
Difford, Jacob 74 Husbandry Meare Old age 19 6 11 11 1 11 5
Difford, George 72 Hedger & c Westhay Old age 19 6 11 11 1 11 5
Difford, Hannah 62 Washer Meare Inability 6 6 5 11½ 12 5½
Difford, John – Labourer Meare Sick wife 5 0 8 3 13 3
Difford, Uriah – Labourer Meare Ill health 4 6 11 5 5
Dyer, John – Herdsman Meare Family 1 6 13 3½ 14 9½
Fowler, Sarah – None Bath For her son, subject to fits 13 0 13 0
Gording, Mary 64 Work in Turbery Meare Inability 8 6 5 6 14 0
Grove, James – Labourer Meare Sickness 1 17 6 17 10½ 2 15 4½
Giblett, John – Labourer Meare Insufficiency 11 11 11 11
Harper, William – Labourer East Honington Sickness 18 0 2 10 6 3 8 6
Hayes, Deborah 44 Work in field Westhay Husband transported 5 0 2 3½ 7 3½
Hayes, Joseph 61 Husbandry Meare Old age 13 0 11 11 1 4 11
Hembry, Esther – None Bayley Old age 1 6 0 1 6 0
Hayes, Hannah 36 Sewing Meare Bastard children 5 0 2 3½ 7 3½
Hopkins, William – Labourer Theale Old age 16 0 16 0
Jeanes, Ann 61 Washer Meare Insufficiency 9 0 5 11½ 14 11½
Kingston, Rebekah 75 None Meare Old age 1 13 6 2 5 5½ 3 18 11½
Male, Thomas – Labourer Meare Inability 7 0 1 12 0 1 19 0
Patch, Ann – None Meare Bastard child 2 3½ 2 3½
Payne, Elizabeth – None Meare Bad eye sight 2 6 5 11½ 8 5½
Parsons, James 76 Husbandry Westhay Old age 19 6 11 11 1 11 5
Read, Eliza 44 Sewing Meare Inability 15 6 5 11½ 1 1 5½
Read, Mary 73 Knitter Meare Old age 19 6 5 11½ 1 5 5½
Stock, Harry – Mason Shipham Lunatic wife 15 0 15 0
Townsend, Jane 1½ None Meare Bastard child 5 0 4 7 9 7
Tucker, Henry 70 Husbandry Meare Old age 1 12 6 5 11½ 1 18 5½
Thorn, Mary 74 None Meare Old age 1 12 6 5 11½ 1 18 5½
Wilcox, Hannah – None – Child 13 0 13 0

477
(continued on next page)
 478
S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
Table 4 (continued)
Name Age Calling Residence Cause of requiring relief Amount of relief out of the workhouse given If in the
during the last quarter Workhouse
In money In kind Total No. of days
Wilcox, Jane – None Edington Old age 1 12 6 1 12 6
Wilcox, James 41 Hedger & Ditcher Godney Sickness 5 0 2 3½ 7 3½
Wells, Maria 78 None Meare Old age 1 12 6 5½ 12 11½
Witcombe, Ann – Servant Meare Bastard children 12 6 5½ 12 11½
Wells, John – Labourer Godney Sickness 1 2 6 1 2 6
York, Mary – None Glastonbury Infirmity 19 6 11 11 1 11 5
Watts, Mary 39 Washer Meare Bastard children 5½ 5½
Wheeler, Charles – Labourer Moorlinch Sick wife 1 6 11 2 5
£59 4 5

FORM E; WELLS UNION [Meare Parish]. List of paupers relieved during the Quarter ending 24th June,1836 by Order of the Board of Guardians, and in conformity to
4 & 5 Will. IV c. 76. Source: Transcribed from DnPnMEA/13/9/2.
 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
An example of a list compiled in accordance with
the order is provided in Table 4.
The Poor Law Commissioners took the disclo-
sure of pauper lists seriously. Responses to com-
plaints from rate payers in certain parishes that
quarterly parochial lists were infrequently pro-
duced resulted in reminders to the officers respon-
sible of their obligation to disclose, the possibility
of posting in places other than the church door
and the preparation of more than one copy to
facilitate wide dissemination (see, for example,
MH12/5706a, MH12/14384).
Under the Amended Order for the Keeping and
Auditing the Accounts of Unions, 1836 the Clerk
to the Board of Guardians was given responsibility
for the parochial list. Every quarter, within two
weeks of the quarterly audit, the clerk was to pre-
pare a list of paupers relieved for each parish in the
union according to an amended prescribed form.
Further ‘‘the said clerk shall cause the relieving
officers of the said Union to affix copies of such
lists respectively upon the principal doors of the
respective parish churches, or such other places
upon which public notices are usually exhibited
in the said parishes, or such other place or places
as the guardians of the said Union for the time
being may direct and appoint’’ (Amended Order,
1836, pp. 97, 109). Examples of such lists, sepa-
rately prepared for outdoor and indoor paupers
are provided in Tables 5 and 6.
Under the ‘General Order as to the Keeping
and Auditing of the Accounts of Unions and of
the Parishes therein’, March 1847 the Master of
the Workhouse was to complete a list of the indoor
poor, showing ‘‘the name of every pauper charge-
able to every such parish during the previous half-
year’’ and the number of days relieved in the work-
house (General order, 1847, p. 37), or a variant
thereof as agreed with the Guardians. Similarly,
the Relieving Officer was obliged to compile a list
of the outdoor poor, disclosing the name of every
pauper contained on the Outdoor Relief Lists for
the previous half year and the amounts of relief
dispensed in money or in kind. The lists of the
Master and Relieving Officer were checked and
signed by the Clerk of the Union. Within 30 days
of the end of the half year the Relieving Officer was
obliged to deliver copies of the Parochial List and
479
a statement of account to the Overseer of each par-
ish ‘‘who shall lay the same before the next Vestry
Meeting, and preserve the same with the Parish
papers’’ (p. 38). This data was used to prepare
the parochial list, an example of which is presented
in Table 7.15
It is worth noting that more information was
disclosed in relation to the outdoor poor. The sep-
aration of in and out door relief in the pauper list
from 1847 reflects contemporary concern about
the persistence and cost of out-relief. Lees (1998,
p. 185) contends that ‘‘between 1849 and 1939,
the vast majority of paupers received aid outside
institutions. The institutionalised poor never
exceeded 1 percent of the English and Welsh pop-
ulations during that period, whereas the percent-
age of the population getting outdoor relief
ranged from a high of 7 percent to a low of about
3 percent’’. About 1870, when an assault on out-
relief was unleashed, there occurred a reassertion
of accounting publicity. In November 1869 the
Poor Law Board expressed anxiety at the consider-
able increase in outdoor relief in London. It rec-
ommended the preparation and distribution of
weekly outdoor lists to guardians, clergymen and
charities in the metropolis to stem the ‘‘double dis-
tribution of relief to the same person’’ by parochial
and private agencies (Relief to the poor, 1870).
Under a general order relating to ‘Statistical and
Financial Statements’, June 1870 the Poor Law
Board re-emphasised the benefits of disclosure.
The guardians were ‘‘empowered to give greater
publicity’’ to the accounts, and to ‘The Parochial
List and Statement of Account’ specifically. The
guardians were encouraged to ‘‘cause such state-
ments and lists, or any parts thereof, to be printed,
and to be circulated among the ratepayers of the
several parishes in the Union, or to be advertised
in some newspaper or newspapers circulating
within the Union, and charge the reasonable costs
incurred in the preparation, printing, circulating,
15
The ‘General Order for Regulating the Keeping, Examining,
Closing, and Auditing of Union and Parochial Accounts’ of
1867 made minor changes to the 1847 ‘Parochial List and
Statement of Account’. The list was to include the pauper
number and those in receipt of medical relief were separately
identified in the list of outdoor poor.
480 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487

Table 5
List of paupers, 1842
Name Age If not in the Workhouse, Cause of requiring relief Amount of relief If in the Workhouse
where resident out of the the number of days
Workhouse
£ S d
Andrews, Rosanna 84 Chilton Polden Aged and infirm 2 2 4¼
Emery, William 83 Chilton Polden Aged and infirm 3 19 4¼
Jennings, Ann 44 Edington Infirm 1 7 4¼
Pople, Rebecca 76 Chilton Polden Aged and infirm 2 – 4¼
Tucker, Hannah 81 Chilton Polden Aged and infirm 2 – 4¼
Taylor, Mary Ann 24 Chilton Polden Husband transported 2 1 8½
Tanner, Ann 64 Chilton Polden Aged and infirm 1 7 4¼
Wilkins, Hannah 55 Chilton Polden Not able to support 1 7 4¼
her children
Wilkins, William – At Dr Langworthy’s Asylum Lunatic 7 18 10
Hamlin, Robert 32 Chilton Polden Illness 19 4
Wilkins, Benjamin 44 Chilton Polden Illness 5 5
£25 9 9¼
Schedule B – FORM 13 (outdoor relief only); Bridgewater union. Parish of chilton polden. A list of paupers belonging to the above
parish who have been relieved during the quarter ending the 29th day of September 1842. Source: DnPnCHI.P/13/9/1.

Table 6
List of paupers, 1844
Name Age If not in the Workhouse, Cause of requiring Amount of If in the Workhouse the
where resident relief relief out of number of days
the
Workhouse
£ S d
Newport, Thomas 77 In the Workhouse Age 91
Francis, John 26 D° Idiot 91
Haynes, Sarah 75 D° Insufficient earnings 47
Haynes, Henry Joseph 1 D° – 47
Trimby, Edwin 11 D° Deserted 91
Board, Joptha 61 D° Infirm 39
Board, Susan 53 D° – 33
Board, Mary 16 D° – 33
Board, James 9 D° – 33
Gane, Jane 18 D° Out of work 72
Old, Francis 32 D° Idiot 63
Cram, Mary 20 D° Pregnant 16
Schedule B – FORM 13 (indoor relief only); Shepton Mallet Union. Parish Of Batcombea. List of paupers belonging to the above
Parish who have been relieved during the Quarter ending the 25th day of September 1844. Source: DnPnBAT/13/9/13–25.

or advertising of the same, upon the common fund
of the Union’’ (Statistical & financial statements,
1870, p. 6). The Report of the Departmental Com-
mittee on Workhouse Accounts, 1902 also referred
to the advantage of publishing the names of the
out-door poor ‘‘on the Church doors’’ (Report,
1903, p. xlii).16 Some witnesses before the Royal
16
However the committee considered that such disclosure was
unnecessary in relation to those confined in the workhouse.
 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487 481

Table 7
Illustrative cases from list of paupers, 1854a
In-door poor Out-door poor
Names of the No. of days Names of the If not in the Cause of Amount given to each
paupers maintenance paupers above parish, requiring pauper during the half-
where resident relief year
In money In kind
£ S d £ S d
Andrews, Maria 189 Andrews, Ann Age 3 16 9
Stokes, Elizabeth 12 Bruce, Sandy Loss one arm and one leg 3 16 9 2 16 8
Stokes, Betsy 183 Brown, Ann Orphan 19 6 1 3 6
Roper, George 112 Bowle, Ann Bad health 2 15 1 17 2
Leigh, Hannah 53 Cornock, George Weak intellect 4 1 2 8 8
Davey, William 9 Coombs, William Idiocy 4 8 2 5
Hembry, Benjamin 156 Clark, Mary On account of her children 4 14 6
Jerroth, William 35 Dowling, Ann Blind 2 6 18 7
Davies, Hannah 68 Davies, Arthur Sickness 5 8 3 14 4
Roper, Rebecca 2 Harding, John Son crippled 1 7
Mapleton, Phoebe 45 Hatch, M. Ann Deserted by husband 4 1 5 11 6
Cullen, Edward 39 Latoham, Wilmot Crippled 2 6 18 7
Mellish, Elizabeth Bad knee 4 3 11 3
Read, William Fractured leg 16
Talbot, James [on] a/c wife blind 2 14
Venn, Eliza Bad arm 3 2
Wreh, Ann Scrofula 4 10 6 5
Schedule B – FORM 19; The Parochial list; Axbridge union. Parish of Wedmore. List of paupers whose relief is charged against the
parish for the half-year ending September 1854. Schedule B – FORM 19. Source: DnPnWED/13/9/1.
a
In the actual account for the parish there were 38 indoor poor and 164 outdoor poor. The examples of indoor poor represent a
sample based on number of days of maintenance. The examples of outdoor poor reflect the different ‘causes of requiring relief’.

Commission on the Poor Laws, 1905–1909 also
testified to the ‘‘excellent effect’’ of publishing lists
of paupers relieved (Minutes of evidence, 1909,
vol. 1, p. 40).17
The individuated recording and disclosure of
the amount of relief dispensed to paupers in pau-
per lists reinforced the stigma of dependency.
Spicker (1984, pp. 94–100) reminds us of the
importance of reciprocity and exchange relation-
ships in determining social status. It is a societal
expectation that those who receive are also obliged
to give. If this reciprocity is not forthcoming the
receiver is stigmatised as dependent while those
who provide are conferred with high status and
17
From 1871 to 1876 276,000 paupers (one third of those on
outdoor relief) were removed from the lists (Englander, 1998, p.
23; Crowther, 1983, pp. 58–59). Although there was a decline
following the crusade of the 1870s over 70–80% of paupers
continued to receive out-relief to 1905 (Lees, 1998, pp. 260–265;
Crowther, 1983, pp. 6–7; Williams, 1981, p. 91).
are empowered. The lists of paupers under the
new Poor Law disclosed the scale of financial
dependence of each recipient of relief. There was
no recognition in these accounts of any contribu-
tion which the pauper had previously made to
the local economy and society in exchange for its
receipt. The accounting disclosures revealed the
extent of obligation and confirmed dependence.
It is also noteworthy that disclosures concern-
ing the cause of relief provided a public signal of
the pauper’s controllability or otherwise of a dis-
crediting attribute, a factor which potentially
impacted on relations between the stigmatised
and the stigmatiser: ‘‘people with stigmas that
are perceived to be controllable are less liked and
more rejected than those whose stigmas are per-
ceived to be uncontrollable’’ (Dovidio et al.,
2000, p. 7). Poverty arising from the visitation of
Providence (sickness, age, widowhood) was less
discrediting than that consequent on breaches of
482 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
contemporary morality and misconduct. This
point indicates the existence of a continuum, or
degrees of stigmatisation, conditional upon
whether the pauper was blameworthy or blameless
(Page, 1984, p. 6). This distinction was epitomised
in the difference between ‘deserving’ and ‘unde-
serving’ poor. Indeed, in relation to the former,
disclosures may have induced sympathy or molli-
fied the stigma attached to the pauper.
Conclusions
This study has attempted to illustrate the intrin-
sically social character of accounting in institu-
tions beyond the factory. In contrast to some
historical studies which loosely implicate quantita-
tive techniques in social relations and social con-
trol it has sought to identify accounting
procedures which directly impact on the individual
and group. Processes of recording, categorisation,
communication and disclosure were key elements
of the accounting system developed for the admin-
istration of poor relief in England and Wales and
the control of the pauper after 1834.
The operation of accounting under the new Poor
Law had consequences for the construction of the
spoiled identity of the pauper. This was an account-
ing designed not only to promote economy and effi-
cient administration but also to record ‘‘things
done’’ by and to the poor (MH1/7, 28.9.1836).
Accounting inscribed moral deficiency and ascribed
stigmatising labels and classifications. In this way it
served to individualise the pauper and was confir-
matory of his/her low social status. As a uniform
system encompassing multi-replicated proformas
and detailed instructions, poor law accounting
tended towards the standardization of classificatory
and individual identities of subjects in diverse sites.
The prescribed forms of accounts relating to the
individual pauper ensured that workhouse masters
categorised inmates according to official classifica-
tions, entrenched the state’s conceptions of the pau-
per and enshrined the causes of poverty as
determined by the powerful. The way in which pau-
pers were identified in accounting processes affected
their interaction with local society. Accounting pro-
cesses reinforced contemporary assumptions of
deviance and are likely to have exerted normalising
influences over the poor.
Once entered into the individuating bureau-
cratic processes which attended the receipt of
relief, the pauper was recorded, labelled and classi-
fied, and his failings publicised through the med-
ium of the accounting regimen. Accounting was
one of the degradation ceremonies which greeted
the applicant for poor relief. On receiving relief,
specific books of account were utilised in the
objectification and surveillance of the individual
pauper through her/his institutional career. On
departure her/his character was written and
became a point of reference which conditioned
identity on future applications for relief. Such pro-
cesses were confirmatory of debased social status
and encouraged deferential behaviour among the
poor.
Further, through the accounting disclosures
which it imposed the state removed the capacity
of the pauper to control the visibility of the stigma
of poverty. Entering the relief system prevented
the possibility of concealment. The individual’s
reasons for seeking relief were inscribed as stigma-
tising labels and revealed to the local community.
The extent and nature of dependence was publi-
cised on the door of the parish church. Perhaps
it is not surprising that popular opposition to the
new Poor Law was occasionally expressed through
the stealing and destruction of the tickets, books
and papers required for its administration, as in
Kent in 1835 and Yorkshire in 1838–1839 (Knott,
1986, pp. 66, 188–189, 192–193). The practical and
symbolic importance of the books and registers
prescribed for recording facts about the poor also
ensured that they attracted the attention of critics
of the 1834 Act. For example, the author of a
‘New Scheme for Maintaining the Poor’ (1838)
suggested that the cost of maintaining paupers
could be reduced by butchering their corpses to
supply meat for workhouse kitchens and tanning
their skins to provide covering and binding for
the books and registers.
The findings related above illustrate that indi-
viduating and classificational accounting practices
associated with organised responses to deviance
 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
may serve to condition, categorise, label and
impart stigmatised identities on the deviant (Blom-
berg & Cohen, 1995). Accounting, through
inscription and record creation and maintenance
has the capacity to reflect and solidify social cate-
gorisation and identity. As Hoskin has observed,
‘‘Like the mark, it [accounting] puts not just a
number on what you do, but a value on who you
are’’ (1998, p. 106). Accounting has been shown
to be significant in the monitoring and confirma-
tion of departures from social normalcy, and in
the identification of ‘differentness’. In this way
accounting is also implicated in social control.
Indeed, stigmatisation is often perceived as a form
of social control – discrediting certain attributes is
an incentive not to deviate into them (Page, 1984,
p. 146). Imposing sanctions or penalties (such as
committal to the workhouse) which generate stig-
mas encourages conformity to social norms (Sho-
ham, 1970, pp. 6–9). The fear of shaming,
ridicule and ostracism is a disincentive to perform-
ing deviant acts.
It is hoped that similar studies of other organi-
sational forms located in the social realm con-
cerned with welfare, correction and treatment,
will reveal how accounting techniques may be
implicated in the control and identity construction
of those who enter them.
Manuscript sources
Glamorgan County Record Office, Cardiff
U/M 28. Admission and Discharge Books,
Merthyr Tydfil Union.
U/M 32. Indoor Relief List, Merthyr Tydfil
Union.
U/Pp 60. Admission and Discharge Books,
Pontypridd Union.
Somerset County Record Office, Taunton
DnGnCL/60. Admission and Discharge Books,
Clutton Union.
DnGnD/60. Admission and Discharge Books,
Dulverton Union.
483
DnGnF/60. Admission and Discharge Books,
Frome Union.
DnGnF/81. Labour Book, Frome Union.
DnGnF/121. Admission and Discharge Books
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DnGnF/133. Out Relief Book, Frome Union.
DnGnF/134. Application and Report Books,
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DnGnF/141. Pauper Description Books, Frome
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DnGnK/60. Admission and Discharge Books,
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484 S.P. Walker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 33 (2008) 453–487
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to ICAS for financial sup-
port. Constructive comments were received from
attendees during presentations at the University
of Stirling; the ‘Governance without Government
Conference’, Cardiff; and the 11th World Congress
of Accounting Historians, Nantes. Grateful thanks
are also due to the anonymous referees.
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